


Tidal Forces

by lamardeuse



Category: A-Team
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-27
Updated: 2010-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:03:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamardeuse/pseuds/lamardeuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie Sullivan returns to the land of the living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tidal Forces

**Author's Note:**

> I'm digressing a bit from canon. I'm basing this on the Doctor's first appearance on the A-Team, "Black Day at Bad Rock." The second encounter in "Deadly Maneuvers" never happened in my little world. Also, Kelly appears in the timeline of the second season rather than the third.
> 
> Lyrics from "The Lady Loves Me" by Tepper and Bennett, "You Do Something to Me" by Cole Porter and "Illusions" by Friedrich Hollander used without permission.
> 
> Thanks: To Jim, for putting up with page after page of my A-Team obsession; to Keith Walker, for recording the stories of twenty-six American women, nurses, servicewomen, and volunteer personnel, who served in Vietnam in his extraordinary oral history, A Piece of My Heart; to the women themselves, who inspired Maggie's story; and to the amazingly supportive group of writers and readers who share my madness. Thank you so much.
> 
> **Please see the end notes for additional warnings.**

 

  _**The lady loves me and it shows  
  In spite of the way she turns up her nose  
  I'm her ideal, her heart's desire  
  Under that ice she's burning like fire  
  She'd like to cuddle up to me  
  She's playing hard to get  
  The lady loves me  
  But she doesn't know it yet**_

        _**The gentleman has savoir faire  
        As much as an elephant or a bear  
        I'd like to take him for a spin  
        Back to the zoo to visit his kin  
        He's got about as much appeal  
        As a soggy cigarette  
        The lady loathes him  
        But he doesn't know it yet**_

  _**The lady's got a crush on me  
        The gentleman's crazy, obviously  
  The lady's dying to be kissed  
        The gentleman needs a psychiatrist  
        I'd rather kiss a rattlesnake  
        Or play Russian roulette  
  The lady loves me  
  But she doesn't know it yet**_

  _**She's falling fast, she's on the skids  
        Both of his heads are flipping their lids  
  Tonight she'll hold me in her arms  
        I'd rather be holding hydrogen bombs  
        Would someone tell this Romeo  
        I'm not his Juliet  
  The lady loves me  
  But she doesn't know it yet**_

  _**She wants me  
        Like poison ivy  
  Needs me  
        Like a hole in the head  
  Anyone can see she's got it bad  
        Ohh! He's mad!**_

        _**The gentleman is an egotist  
  I'm simply aware I'm hard to resist  
        He's one man I could learn to hate  
  How's about having dinner at eight  
        I'd rather dine with Frankenstein  
        In a moonlight tete a tete  
  The lady loves me  
  But she doesn't know it yet**_

  _**Oh yes, she loves me  
        Dig that shrinking violet  
  She really loves me  
        Here's one gal you'll never get  
  The lady loves me  
        Would you like to make a bet?  
  I said the lady loves me  
        The gentleman's all wet  
 **_

_ **(Tepper/Bennett) ** _

   
 

   
   
_March 16, 1983_  
 

"Hey, Doc.  Remember me?"

I wasn't shocked to hear his voice coming out of the darkness when I came home that night.  In fact, I'd been expecting him for three weeks, since he and his team of modern-day Merry Men had gunned it out of town just barely ahead of a gaggle of MPs.   The endless nights that followed were ones in which I'd lain awake staring at photostats of two pictures I'd found in the Sacramento library archives.  In one, he was young, cocksure, barely twenty years old; it was taken when he received a Silver Star in Korea.  The black and white image failed to capture the hue of his eyes, but the pale coldness of them was evident even then.  What had he seen to cause them to take on that shadow of don't-give-a-damn almost cruelty?

In the second, released after his prison break, the shadow nearly eclipsed his gaze.  He seemed dead, lifeless, a walking spectre.  Somewhere in between the two, I thought, was the man I had met last month.  Re-animated by a purpose and a code of ethics I didn't pretend to understand, he was a lion released from his cage, knowing that eventually the bars would surround him again, but determined to live every moment outside of them to the fullest.

And then there was the surprising resurrection he had accomplished in me.  I replayed the moments with him over and over in my head, and I wondered at the ease with which the mask I'd created had crumbled in his presence.  How had he known that I had been alive once, that I had enjoyed prowling outside the cage as much as he?  The relative safety and comfort of China Beach had been purgatory for me, and so I had requested ever more dangerous assignments during my three tours in Vietnam.  Eventually, the blood had stained my soul to the point where even I couldn't wash it off, and I had retreated, surrendered to peace and anonymity in a country town.  Until he had arrived with his wounded comrade and brought it all flooding back in a tide of red emotion.

"I'm glad you got rid of that guy."

What guy?  What guy?  Oh, yes.  I had gone out with Mike, a colleague and friend from a neighbouring town, had only just gotten in the door.  The scent of his after-shave still lingered on my flesh where he had kissed me good-night.  How could I have forgotten something that happened less than three minutes ago?

Simple.

He emerged from the shadows of my examining room, into the dim light cast by the hall lamp.  The icy blue eyes assessed me.  I suppressed a shiver.

"Yes, well, I didn't invite him in because I'm tired."  Liar.  I usually invited Mike in after our occasional dates. We had an agreement that satisfied us both.   I didn't invite him in tonight because three weeks ago I had discovered he was no longer enough.

"Yeah?  Just how tired are you, Doc?" he smirked, making tissue paper of my defences.  He came closer, and I felt his heat.  I flashed back to the most blatantly sexual move I had made in over a decade.  Disarming him in front of his buddy and the town sheriff should have been a matter-of-fact affair, but when I had stepped within his sphere of influence our surroundings had dissolved, and  my fingers had sparked with the electricity of our contact as they roamed his body seeking weapons.  My hands itched now,  remembering the tautness of the muscle under his shirt and the weight of his hard steel 9 mm as I tugged it loose from his waistband.  My gaze dipped to his jeans and a flush betrayed me, stealing into my cheeks.

His palms raised slowly in a gesture of surrender just as they had that day. Reading my mind, he growled, "Go ahead.  Take it off me."

"Hannibal..."  The moniker suited him better than his commonplace given names.  I hated and loved that he saw through my disguise so easily.  My hand moved forward of its own accord, but it was caught before it reached its target.  I looked up to see blue eyes consumed by fire rather than darkness.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he whispered harshly.

"Hiding," I whispered back.

"Not any more," he replied as his mouth came down on mine.

My hands forgot the gun in their search for other surfaces and textures.  Fingers dug into his short silver hair, kneaded the cords of his neck, and sampled the muscles of his forearms.  His roamed up my sides and back, deftly removed my jacket.  The first touch on the bare skin of my shoulders elicited a hiss from one or both of us, the sound of a brand hitting flesh.

I was dimly aware of being pushed backwards, slowly, until the backs of my thighs met the edge of my examining table.  His big hands encircled my waist and lifted me effortlessly.  In the darkened room, his face was unreadable.

"Please.  I need to see you."  Who was that begging, pathetic woman?  Silently acquiescing, he moved to my desk, where he flipped on a lamp.  Leave it to Hannibal Smith to have scoped out all of the mood lighting in the house.  The warm glow bathed him in sympathetic colours that diffused his sharp lines.  Despite that, he still resembled a hungry predator as he approached.

When he was within striking distance again, I reached for the buttons of his shirt, finding a smooth, solid male torso underneath.  My fingers brushed the pucker of a scar over his right pectoral muscle, the skin there even hotter than the rest of him.  It was an old one, but it went deep.  Without thinking, I leaned forward and traced the line of it with my tongue.

"Jesus," he murmured, though I knew the scar would have no feeling.  He undid the zipper on my skirt and slid the garment smoothly off my legs.  He sucked in a breath and I felt the feather-light touch of a fingertip over the tops of my stockings.  They were a daring switch from my regular, sensible panty hose; I had bought several pairs along with the garter belt on my trip to Sacramento.

"Did you wear these for him?" he demanded.

I shook my head.  "You know damn well who I wore them for.  I've been...." I trailed off, my pride not allowing me to make this admission of my need.

But he knew.  Suddenly he cupped me, and I rose off the table with a muted scream.  "You've been..." he prompted relentlessly, the pad of his thumb caressing my clitoris through the silk.

"I've been waiting for this for three weeks," I panted, angry at my own weakness.  "Is that what you want to hear?"

"It's a start," he grinned, moving to pull my top over my head.  My breasts tingled in anticipation of his touch, but he didn't unhook my bra right away.  Whimpering softly, I shuddered as he traced the edge of the lace. He knew he was in control this time, and so did I.  Next time I would wipe that macho grin off his face, but for now I was helpless in my need for what I knew he could give me.

Leaving the garters and stockings on, he tugged at my panties until they slipped down my legs. He laid one hot palm on my quivering belly, then teased my nest of curls with a maddening pressure.  The other hand stole around my back, drawing me forward for his mouth, which latched onto one nipple and suckled it through the fabric.  I clutched at his head as he nipped and bit, feeling my centre clench involuntarily, rhythmically, and sensing moisture swiftly descending to drench my labia.

He must have smelled me.  After a minute or so he lifted his head and smiled like a satisfied cat, though I knew he was far from being satisfied.

"Open wide," he growled, and his hands stroked and parted my thighs as he knelt before me.

The first touch of his tongue on my clitoris almost brought me to orgasm.  I bent my head to watch him as he began a series of long, wet laps, then switched to a gentle, tugging suction, then a circular motion that had me rotating my hips mindlessly.  He looked up to see me watching him, and he stopped.  I nearly sobbed in frustration.

"You like to observe the procedure, Doc?" he asked.  "Then observe this."  And I stared, transfixed, as he took three, God, three, of his thick, blunt fingers and drove them inside me until they disappeared.  His thumb came down on my clit with each downstroke, and I screamed for real this time as he filled me again and again.  My hands dug into the edge of the table, seeking added leverage for his thrusts.

"Come on, Doc," he implored silkily.  "Show me that fire."  And I exploded into the night, shamelessly crying out while my inner muscles milked his fingers.  He held me until my convulsions subsided, then sensitized me all over again with a last flick of his thumb.  Boneless, I allowed him to pull me off the table, then turn me.  I realized what he was going to do when he pressed me face down on the metal surface, and I became even wetter, if such a thing were possible.

I heard the sound of a zipper being drawn and realized he hadn't even removed his jeans.  At the first touch of his hard penis to the entrance of my vagina, I pushed back frantically, needing him to fill me more than I'd ever been filled.  Chuckling, he drew back, then murmured, "Not so fast, sweetheart." I felt my bra being undone, then the lace loosened as his hands slipped around me to cup my breasts.

"You Special Ops boys know how to torture a girl," I managed to gasp, my back bowing in response to his clever fingers teasing my nipples.

His jeans-clad thighs pressed against my stockinged ones, and the sensation of him still clothed was carnal.  "You got that right," he whispered, his hands leaving my breasts to knead my buttocks.  I reveled in the progress of his fingers as they travelled the backs of my knees, up my thighs, over my cleft, then dug in to grip my hips.  I felt his length slide between my legs, gliding along the wetness to prod at my sopping clit.  God, he was huge, long and thick just like I'd dreamed.  Somehow not being able to see it, only to feel it, was even more erotic.

He pulled in and out smoothly, slowly, the friction exquisite against me.  I pushed back experimentally and he didn't draw away, so I grew bolder, my hands reaching back to grip his hips.  His zipper dug into my ass and I sucked in a harsh breath.

"Oh, God," I groaned, unable to stand it any more.  "For Christ's sake, Hannibal..."

"Yeah?" he enquired, still in maddening control.  He was going to make me beg for it.

"I want your cock," I ground out, too far gone to be shocked at my coarse demand.

"You've got it," he declared innocently.

"Dammit!" I yelled, bucking back against him.  "I want it inside me.  Filling me.  Please.  Please.  Please."  My gasping entreaties were punctuated by sharp, swift rolls of my hips.

Suddenly he withdrew with an animal growl, and I heard the soft sound of a plastic package tearing.  I nearly came from the anticipation as he sheathed himself.  Then he spread the folds of my labia and drove his shaft home, all the way in, beautifully, mercilessly.  I called his name over and over as he pumped into me with jackhammer thrusts that shook the table and reached another shattering orgasm just ahead of him.

His big body draped over mine for a moment, then he kissed me between my shoulder blades and released me.  I lay there, shivering, shuddering at the force of my feelings and the realization that he had brought me back to the land of the living whether I liked it or not.  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_July 10, 1983_  
 

It wasn't going to be one of my better days.

The bitter, breath-stealing heat and smog of an L.A. summer afternoon crept into my pores and forced the sweat from my rapidly dehydrating body, reminding me of the reason I had chosen the mountains for my exile.  Gulping another half-glass of iced tea, I sat and watched the stoned, the lame, the barely-there of Los Angeles pass by the sidewalk café.  Across the table, two people who had saved my sanity more than once eyed me expectantly.  I attempted to come up with something to tell them, but my brain had shut down from lack of oxygen.

"Well?" Abby demanded.  She was a petite, redheaded firecracker, only a couple of years behind my forty-five, but she had the audacity to look a good decade younger.  Watching her spit piss and vinegar made me feel indescribably old.

"Don't rush her," Dora grumbled, shoving an elbow in her partner's direction.

"I'm not rushing.  Who's rushing?  I want to see if everyone's done so we can drive like hell to the nearest air-conditioned mall."

"I'm done.  Done to a turn," I drawled.

"Yeah, well, we don't get the breezes in the barrio, sugar."

"Dammit, Abby," warned Dora, pulling back the elbow in preparation for another thrust.

I sighed heavily, then regretted the intake of air that had preceded it when my lungs burned.  "Look, you don't have to pussyfoot around.  I'm the one who asked to meet with you about this."  Say it, you pathetic coward.  "I thought I was serious about it, but I'm just not ready."

"Just not ready to take your head out of your ass, you mean," Abby murmured.

I barked a laugh.  Abby and Dora had been two of my closest friends in country, and even though we rarely saw each other nowadays, we infallibly resumed our old camaraderie the instant we got together.   They had seen as much blood and death as I, but where I had buried myself in Bad Rock, they had gone straight from the jungle into public health services in some of the toughest neighbourhoods in L.A.  Fleetingly, I asked myself if their strength might have anything to do with their love and commitment to each other, but I stomped on that girlish notion.  My eyes smarted with the grit in the air, and I blinked repeatedly to clear them.

Dora was the Earth Mother of the two, a zaftig Latina with brown eyes you could drown in.  She reached across the table to lay a hand on mine, and I could feel her empathy flowing over me like a balm.  "No pressure, OK?  Just come with us, see the clinic.  The last doctor we interviewed tucked his fat _gringo _tail between his legs and ran, huffing and puffing.  If you run, at least you'll look sexier doing it.  You can meet Esteban and some of the other staff, get a feel for the place."

I smiled, feeling light-headed in the atmosphere of her caring.  "All right.  Take me to your DMZ."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  


Esteban Ramirez was every woman's dream.  Tall, dark and devastating, he manufactured charm the way the sun manufactures light.  The trouble was, he knew it. Together, he, Abby and Dora were the primary medical staff of East L.A.'s biggest clinic, a multi-function centre that dispensed everything from pills to teen anger management counselling.  They were busting at the seams, and another doctor had been badly needed for six months.  Thankfully,  the funding had finally come through last week, and from that moment on the search for another MD had been in earnest.  I knew how it would be working with my old friends, but I wasn't so sure about the Latin Lover.  From the first ten seconds of our meeting I could see him for exactly what he was: another cocky SOB.

However, as Abby and Dora assured me, he was also a damned fine doctor.  I saw that within another fifteen minutes as we accompanied him on his rounds of the projects.  His skill and confidence were evident, but luckily so was his dedication to the people of this neighbourhood, or he wouldn't have gotten anywhere with the residents.  I was grudgingly impressed by his rapport with men, women and children of all ages and ethnic backgrounds.  I envied him the kind of trust I had once enjoyed, the trust of human beings on the edge of existence, whose decision to place their lives in your hands was not easy or automatic just because you wore a spotless white coat.  Or a captain's bars.

We entered the shabby, run-down apartment of the last patient of the day, a child whose mother seemed to be absent in mind and spirit when we arrived.  The girl had the old eyes of the baby-faced soldiers I used to tend, the boys turned men in the time it took their buddy's head to be blown off in front of them.  But she also had a life and colour in her that defied her gray surroundings, and I felt something inside me softly shatter at her infinite patience with the poking and prodding my colleague put her through.  Suddenly, the girl disappeared, and in her place was another girl, with  bloodstained thighs and cigarette burns on her–-oh, Christ.  The walls began to orbit my body, and the oxygen in the room became as thin as Everest's.  After an eternity, the good doctor finally finished with her, and it was all I could do to keep from sprinting for the stairs.  By the time we reached the street, I was close to an anxiety attack the likes of which Helen's little girl Maggie hadn't experienced in a very long time.

Of course, it was Dora's hand that rubbed small circles on my back until I could breathe again without wanting to vomit.  "You're not ready.  That's all it is.  It's OK, it's OK," she soothed.

At least, her words were meant to soothe, but I wasn't to be mollified.  "It's not OK.  I want to do this.  I have to do this.  I want to feel again!"  The nausea returned and I realized I was screaming at the top of my lungs.   Collapsing on the ground, I rested my head on my knees and tried to imagine peaceful surroundings.  The interior of a satin-lined coffin.  Mine.  That's what Bad Rock was to me now.  If I didn't make this move, I would end up in a real one soon enough.  I was tired of living in the shadows.

"Then you know what you have to do."  Abby's voice was gentle, but firm.

"I know," I sighed.  "The Goddamned VA hospital."  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_August 26, 1983_  
 

Another session, another mindfuck.  I strode through the antiseptic corridors of the Hospital, my boots clicking and clacking on the tile.  I was venting my anger the way I'd been taught to do these past few weeks.  The truth was that the sessions, both group and individual, were extremely helpful.  Also painful, excruciating trips through the barbed wire encampment of my neuroses and the neuroses of the dozen or so assorted shell shock types I had fallen in with.  I was surprised to find that my group was to be solely comprised of medics of one sort or another, rather than combat vets.  I had to finally admit that I wasn't a helpless female who couldn't stand the guff, that the experiences I had had, while different from those of the grunts, were nonetheless traumatic in their own way.

The Southern California heat had dissipated a little with the decline of the sun when I finally got outside.  Taking a few deep, calming breaths, I strode over to a little bench, where I figured I might as well stop to smell the flowers.  I would be pulling the eight to four shift tomorrow, only the second one I'd had at the clinic without either Abby or Dora hovering over me.  The girls were treating me like breakable merchandise, which should have offended me.  Truth be told, though, I was enjoying being the object of someone else's caring for a change.

I hadn't allowed myself to think much about the catalyst of my resurrection.  There was nothing else to call him, nothing else to call the effect he had precipitated in me.  I didn't try to explain it in any terms but those of alchemy.  Emotions were messy, inconvenient; mine hadn't served me well in the past, and I refused to listen to them at my time of life.  We had spent one night together, and it had brought back memories of a vitality I had denied myself.  I would always be strangely grateful to him, but that was all I could allow it to be, or the knowledge of it would gradually sap my strength.  And I needed every ounce of that right now.

Taking in the view, I watched the approach of an elderly, stoop-shouldered gardener pushing a large garden cart.  The barrow was completely filled and covered by an olive drab tarp, and it occurred to me that it was a burdensome load for someone of his advanced age.   He stopped in front of the huge peony bush beside the bench and set to tending the plant, the swishing sound of the shears interrupting my woolgathering for now.

"You don't look like one of the loonies," he barked in a cracked tenor, not looking up from his task.  I turned my head from side to side, searching for the person he was talking to, but the two of us were alone.

"Well, you're wrong, because I am," I laughed, responding to the mischief in his quavering voice.

"Nah.  You look like a doctor.  I knew a lady doctor once."

Snip, snip.  Two peonies were suddenly beheaded.  What the hell?

The hairs on the back of my neck rose inexplicably.  "What was she like?"

The shears fell silent for a moment.  Then another.  My gut tightened.

He shook his head.  "She was pure fire," he murmured, his voice turning low and familiar.  He turned toward me then, and blue eyes paralyzed me.

My God.

The canvas covering the cart shifted suddenly, and I watched a head emerge over the edge.  "Uh, Colonel?  I don't mean to be insubordinate here or nothin', but it's gettin' powerful hot under this thing."  Murdock's too-bright gaze lighted on me and he broke out in a guileless smile.  "Hey, Doc Sullivan!  Long time no see."

Hannibal.

The eyes still held me, wouldn't let me go, began to devour my flesh.

"I went back and there was a For Sale sign on the lawn," he told me matter-of-factly.  No hurt, no disappointment, no betrayal of self.

My mouth moved to form words.  "When?"

"About a month ago."

"I moved down here.  I'm living in Long Beach."

The eyes narrowed.   "Did you track us down?"

The question startled me from my stupor.  "What?  I don't understand–"

He shook his head again, more forcefully this time, as if to clear it.  "I have to go.  Meet me.  Rudy's on Vine at ten o'clock."

It wasn't a request, and I bristled.  "If you think I–"

"‘Bye, Doc," he grinned, and pushed against the cart.  A last wave from Murdock and they were off.

I sat for several more minutes, wondering if I had conjured him.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

On my radio, Elvis and Ann-Margret were sparring to a jaunty rock ‘n roll beat.

  _The lady's got a crush on me  
The gentleman's crazy, obviously  
  The lady's dying to be kissed  
The gentleman needs a psychiatrist  
I'd rather kiss a rattlesnake  
Or play Russian roulette  
  The lady loves me  
  But she doesn't know it yet_

Switching them off with a vicious flick of the wrist, I turned to peer out the window of my Chevette.  I had sold the Mercedes convertible when I moved: first of all, it wouldn't have lasted ten minutes on the streets of East L.A.  Secondly, the profit I had made from my status symbol had gone toward a down payment on my dream home, a modest Craftsman in a quiet neighbourhood of older houses.  I loved the creak of the hardwood floors and the patterns thrown by the stained glass window onto my breakfast table every morning.  I loved the way the house was completely mine, too, removed from my work.

I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit I hadn't imagined him sitting there in the dappled sunlight of the kitchen as I sipped my tea one morning.  The domestic notion vanished almost immediately as I realized the ludicrousness of it, but for an instant it was overpowering.  I'd never been married, and for most of my life had lived alone, sometimes with arrangements like the one I had had with Mike.  I didn't think I was built for marriage and picket fences.  The ones who I had thought over the years might end up being "the one" hadn't been.  Usually, the fact I wanted to have a life that didn't completely revolve around home and hearth eventually became a sore point, and we parted.  I'd had the good grace to be devastated a couple of times, but eventually I mended and went on breathing and walking and talking.  I liked men just fine, but more than a quarter of a century's experience with them told me there was no indication they weren't pretty much interchangeable.

Which didn't explain why the hell I was parked outside a swanky night spot at nearly ten o'clock waiting for–what?  At least I had enough backbone to sit outside rather than perch on a bar stool nursing a scotch while he failed to show up.  After all, there was only so much humiliation I would endure for the prospect of mind-blowing sex.

Precisely at ten, a military rap sounded on the window of my passenger door, nearly vaulting me from my skin.  Oh well, I thought, trying to calm my heart rate, at least he was punctual.   Without looking up, I reached over to flip the door lock.

He slid in beside me, a soft curse escaping him when his knee collided with the glove compartment.  Served him right for being so damned tall.

I turned to survey him in the dim light.  _He's just a man, just another man_, my mind chanted idiotically.  _What's the difference?_

The ice-blue gaze travelled over me, and I fought down a visceral reaction.  All right, so there's a tiny difference.

"How've you been, Doc?" he breathed.

I had been sure how to answer that five minutes ago.   "Peachy," I managed.

"Mad at me?" he asked.

I stared, confused.  "Why would I be?"

"I'm not exactly the most reliable beau."

It took a few seconds for his words to sink in, then I found myself laughing.  "Hannibal, believe it or not, I never expected to see you again."

He arched an eyebrow.  "Or wanted to?"

I shook my head.  "I never considered it.  It wasn't an option."  Only a small lie.

He nodded, seemingly satisfied.  Indicating the restaurant, he asked, "Want to go in?"

I pursed my lips thoughtfully.  "Not all that hungry, actually."

He grinned.  "Neither am I, Doc.  Neither am I."  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_August 27, 1983_  
   
 

The first fingers of dawn light were coming in my window when I awoke.   Awareness of him struck me like a blow; I wasn't expecting him still to be here.   I reached out to disable the alarm before it went off, then turned over with careful, slow movements to avoid disturbing him.

I drew in a startled breath, then held it when he stirred.  I had watched enough people sleep to know that the old adage about innocence revealed was true, but with him it was nevertheless unexpected.  Somehow it had seemed impossible to me for him to be anything but what he was, to play the role for which I had cast him.  But the evidence of the boy he had once been was there in his face, in the way his hair spilled, undisciplined, over his forehead, in the way a slight smile hinted at joys revisited.  It lasted no more than a moment, because his training would not permit the weight of someone else's gaze on him while he was vulnerable, and his eyes opened to return my scrutiny.  But in that moment, I felt my perspective tilt like a trick camera angle in a Hitchcock thriller, and I wondered what, exactly, I was going to do now.

"Hey," he offered.  The syllable climbed up my spine, and I resisted the urge to shake it off violently.

"Hey yourself," I returned intelligently.  "You're here."  I bit my tongue at the slip.

"Mmmm," he acknowledged, pushing the hair back into place.  "I've got to meet the guys near your clinic later on; thought I'd ride in with you.  That okay?"

"How did you–" I began, then cut myself off.  We hadn't spoken about my job here in L.A.  "Oh.  You did have about four hours to have my whole life investigated, didn't you?"

The feline smile made an appearance.  "Well, you took me by surprise, Doc.  It doesn't usually take us that long."

Us.  Jesus.  Us.  I was lying here naked with a man who moved as a platoon.  What was I thinking?

He sensed the shift in me.  "What's the matter?"

"Nothing.  Nothing," I muttered, sitting up abruptly and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed.  "I left the Army a long time ago, that's all."

"So did I," he growled.

My shoulders slumped under the weight of this–everything.  "I'm sorry.  It's just–it's a lot."

One big, warm hand landed on my bare back and began a slow circling pressure.  "Yeah."  His touch was soothing, completely without innuendo.  "You picked a tough neighbourhood."

I grunted, leaning back in spite of myself.  "No tougher than some I've worked before."

He didn't answer, just kept up the light massage, and I felt my consciousness slipping away.  Shaking myself, I fought to stay awake.

"Shhh," he soothed.  "C'mere."

And in seconds I was wrapped in an embrace that I shouldn't have needed, but did.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  


Later that day, while bandaging a child's scraped knee, I found myself staring into space like an old maid with memories.

Which I suppose I am; however, mine are luckily, or perhaps unluckily, more recent than the norm.

Dappled sunlight in sharp, jagged colours tumbling over my kitchen table, and blue eyes studying me over the rim of a coffee cup.

Oh, hell.

Now what?  
   
   
   
   
 

_September 30, 1983_  
 

"Have you ever considered meatloaf?  Seriously considered meatloaf?"

It was a measure of my current mental state that Murdock's tangential topics of discussion were starting to make sense to me.  It was a measure of my current mental state that he was turning into one of my better friends.  For some reason I'd gravitated toward Murdock, who spent large portions of his life in the VA hospital where I had my counselling sessions, and the rest of it as an unofficial member of Hannibal Smith's A-Team.  He represented a tie to the past I was currently trying to unearth.  We didn't talk about our mutual demons, but the connection seemed to serve us both well.  I found Abby and Dora to be too mothering right now for me to truly let loose in their presence.

Realizing he was waiting for my response, I admitted, "Meatloaf has never been a subject I've given much thought, no."  I wondered if he was talking about the singer or the food, and decided my answer would fit either definition.

"I'm disappointed in you, Doc."  Murdock shot to his feet, hands moving in time with the rhythms of his softly accented speech.  "I've been all over this great U.S. of A., and wherever I go, I pursue my study of meatloaf.  And I've decided that every region, every person, has their own definition of meatloaf.  No two people make it exactly the same way.  Pork, beef, maybe even lamb.  Cayenne, chili, plain ol' salt, tomato sauce, onion soup mix.  The varieties are endless."  Brown eyes swung toward me, intent.  "It's my feeling that meatloaf is the essence of America."

I nodded, only slightly frightened that I could see his point immediately.  "The celebration of individuality.  Dissenting voices living in harmony, united by a democratic ideal."

"Exactly!" he shouted, pointing at me triumphantly.  "You do understand."

"Oh, I understand, all right," I told him as he flopped back down on the grass.

"You fixin' to see the Colonel soon?" he asked, and I started at the abruptness of the question.  His changes of direction still surprised me.

I attempted a smile, but wasn't entirely successful.  "It's not exactly up to me."

He shook his head.  "They all think I don't notice things, but I am tuned to the mental energies of my team."  Tapping the side of his skull, he grinned.  "I know when somethin's new, somethin's different.  Sometimes even before they notice it themselves."

Now he was losing me.  "You mean, when they're on a–case?"  What was the correct term for the work they did?  Operation?  Mission?  Insanity?

"Naw.  I'm talkin' ‘bout emotional stuff.  I know when B.A. is worried about one of his kids, or when Face has a nightmare that won't let him go."  He pinned me with an unusually level stare.  "And I know when the Colonel isn't on his game."

"Wh-what do you mean?" I stammered, wondering if this was the lead up to some sort of warning.  I'd been around enough military types to decipher some of the signs.  To some of them, Murdock included, I could be trying to horn in on their tight-knit little boy's club.

"Well, y'see, I haven't got it all figured out yet.  Our C.O. is a tough nut to crack.  Wouldn't be the C.O. if he wasn't.  But something–or someone–" he raised an eyebrow "has got him turned in on himself.  He's lookin' inside, and he usually looks out–for everything and everyone."

"That kind of thinking could get a person killed," I ventured, trying to show him I spoke his language.

Murdock nodded soberly.  "Yes ma'am.  But I have faith in the Colonel.  He won't fail us when the time comes.  He'll pull his head out of his–I mean to say, he'll sort out his emotional turmoil."

My mouth tugged upwards at his near-slip.  "I don't know what sort of emotional turmoil you could be talking about, Murdock.  Hannibal and I–it's not that complicated."

He looked at me, then, and in a flash his face was transformed from glum to ecstatic.  "That's it!  I knew it was somethin' I wasn't thinkin' to look for!  It's you!  Of course it's you!"

Several heads swivelled toward us at his outburst.  "Murdock..." I began cautiously, but he had already calmed to an acceptable level.

""M ashamed of myself," he muttered.  "Should hang up my shingle.  It's as plain as the nose on my face."

"What is?"

He pursed his lips thoughtfully.  "Woman trouble.  It's always the way.  No offense, Doc."

"None taken," I told him dryly.  "But honestly, it can't be as bad as you say.  It's not as if–" I cut myself off abruptly.  It's not as if what?  Not as if we're going to pledge our undying love and live in a house with a white picket fence?  That was certainly indisputable.  But what exactly was going to happen?  What was I hoping for from all of this?

"Oh, it's nothin' against you," Murdock continued, missing my state of emotional turmoil completely.  "Women are wonderful, and Hannibal–well, he's not usually too lonely, if you know what I mean.  But this is different.  It's as if he's trying to finish a puzzle, fit all the pieces together.  That's the only way I know how to say it."

"He's usually good at puzzles, isn't he?" I bit out, wincing at the sarcastic tone.  The offhand comment about the dear Colonel's track record stirred feelings I didn't want to acknowledge.

"Yes, I guess he is.  But not when there's an extra piece."

I snapped my head up to look at him.

Murdock's features softened with sympathy.  "You have to understand.  We've had to pare away all the non-essentials in our lives.  Travel light.  And I'm not just talking about how many pairs of socks you pack in your duffel bag.  It's a hard thing to remember just how much you had before it all started.  If you thought about it too much, you'd get so's wanting it back was all you could think about.  And that's no good for any of us."

I was amazed when my vision clouded with tears, which I rapidly blinked back.  "That's what I'm trying to do, Murdock.  I'm trying to remember.  I'm trying to pack a whole damn steamer trunk again."

He raised an eyebrow.  "Then you're braver than any of us, Doc.  And I wish you luck."  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_October 6, 1983_  
 

"Damn!  I love this song.  Dance with me, Mag."

"You're a nut."

"And you're no fun," Dora pouted.  "Come on, Esteban.  Shake your money maker."

I poured myself into a chair and watched as one of my oldest friends cut the waiting room linoleum to an old Etta James tune on the clinic's ratty old eight-track.  The powerful sandpaper of the singer's voice scoured my nerves clean after a long trying day.  Two gunshot victims that had to be sent to Emergency, one pregnant woman who was slowly killing her baby with heroin, and several lacerations, concussions and bruises from a brawl at the local high school had made this my most eventful day yet.  But at ten we shut our doors and the chaos of the world would be kept at bay for a few hours.

At least that's what we hoped.

Esteban didn't need much encouragement to shake various parts of himself.  I tried to remain detached, but a small piece of my brain had to concede that he was a luscious specimen.  It wasn't as though I couldn't appreciate him as a work of Nature, but younger men who still had a lot to learn about themselves had never been favourites of mine.  However, the good doctor was more than just a pretty face; he was also dedicated and damn good at his job.  After a couple of weeks, he had even been gracious enough to stop propositioning me and start relating to me as a colleague rather than a potential conquest.

He spun Dora effortlessly, no mean feat, and reached out a hand to me.  I sighed heavily.

"C'mon, Sully."  What was it about me that inspired nicknames?  Christ. "You're not on the shelf yet."

"Not yet," I drawled, checking my watch.  "I've got another week before my expiry date."

He smiled, and I was reminded of another cocky grin.   The wattage was similar, but the electric shock was milder.  "I'm not gonna take no for an answer."  Dora gyrated closer and he spun her again without taking his eyes off me.

I nodded at my friend.  "Think you can handle both of us?"

"I've been taking vitamin supplements."

The laugh surprised me, coming from the depth of my soul and bursting free.  And suddenly, incongruously, I thought: maybe this was going to work.  Maybe I can live like this again.

"Well, as long as I'm not going to wear you out," I allowed, suppressing a groan as I swayed to my feet.   Before he could whirl me about the linoleum, however, a sharp knock sounded at the door.

"So much for fun ‘n games," sighed Dora.  She ambled over to the door and peered out the glass.  "We're closed for tonight, fellas," she yelled at whoever was on the other side.

"He's been hit!" I heard a man's voice shout back.  My gut tightened.

Dora shot us both a look, and Esteban nodded.  She turned the locks and opened the door.

Immediately after, a troupe of three youths barrelled in, carrying a fourth between them.  His arm was covered in blood and clumsily tied with a blue bandana.  Gang colours.  We had a no-fault policy among the gang bangers and addicts around here, or else we would never see them when they needed us, but we kept a panic button under the desk that connected us to the police station.  Something told me to start moving nonchalantly toward the desk while my colleagues attended to the wounded kid.

"Hey, where you goin'?"  Obviously the leader, this one had kept his hands free while the others carried the victim.  I made eye contact with him and met nothing but a dead, lifeless gaze.

"I left the antiseptic wipes over here somewhere," I told him, refusing to flinch.

His fists clenched, then unclenched spasmodically.  "Okay, but hurry up."  There was a pause, then: "He's hit bad."  Shit.  He had to think about that one.  It had to be a coverup.

I made a fuss of looking in drawers, bending down and playing the absentminded professor to the hilt.  "Now, let me see..."  My fingers made contact with the switch under the wooden desk top while I made a show of fiddling.  I knew if I was wrong and the guy was just nervous about his friend, I was risking our whole reputation with the community.  But I was starting to learn to trust my instincts again.  They were rusty from years of disuse, but they had been handy in a previous life, and I was pretty sure they would be again.

"You found it yet?" he ground out.

"No.  I think maybe..." I trailed off while he grew more agitated.  "Dora," I called, "you got the alcohol wipes over there?"

"Of course," she called back.  Then almost immediately after, I heard an incoherent shout from Esteban, and the dull _thud _of someone being thrown against a wall.

Dead eyes produced a switchblade in the time it took me to blink.  "Now, bitch, you gonna show me where you keep your pills."

Three of them.  Four.  It was a sure thing that the "wounded" man was in great shape.  I couldn't do anything but stall until the police arrived.  "You're not going to find anything you'll like.  Our weekly shipment was supposed to come in today, but they didn't make it.  Stocks are low."  That part wasn't a complete lie.  Stocks of various medications were low, but that was because of situations just like this one.  The clinic only kept enough on the shelf for immediate need; for emergencies we could always call on the hospital.  We'd even taken to putting a sign in the window listing all the meds we didn't have, drugs that often tempted criminals and addicts, but these guys were obviously illiterate or didn't believe everything they read.

"Look," I began slowly, trying to calm my breathing.  I made a point of keeping my eyes trained on his and not on the blade, but it was tough.  "We need those meds.  They cost a lot of money, and you could probably make something off them on the street, even though the ones you really want aren't here.  But the people who come in and out of here every day, they need them more than you do.  There are lots of other ways you can get money, but there aren't any other ways for us to help them."

"You trying to fuck with me?" he said, low and slow, matching my rhythm.  The knife moved in my peripheral vision, and I fought to keep my gaze level.

"I'm not trying to fuck with you.  I'm trying to appeal to you as a human being.  You're still human, aren't you?  Then think like one.  Think about your mother or your sister or your girlfriend or your _hombres _in here someday, and we can't help them because you keep coming in here and fucking us over."

The knife stopped moving.  His eyes swept over me, burning into me, looking for weaknesses.   The seconds ticked by at a glacial pace.

"Hey, man, I found the candy store!"  shouted one of the kids in the examining room.  The dispensary wasn't marked, but it was a simple process of elimination to find the correct door.  Even these mental giants could figure it out.

The only reaction from the leader to this bit of news was a twitch.  He smiled, and it was the smile of some of the Black Ops soldiers I had seen, devoid of humour or connection to the rest of the world.  "Nice try.  But you can get more of this shit any time you want."

I barked a laugh then, and had the satisfaction of seeing him startled.  "You think so?  Sure.  We'll get more, but after a while they'll get tired of giving it to us over and over again and shut us down.  And a year from now some rich, fat white guy will be sitting in his goddamned country club in Beverly Hills and telling his pals, ‘You know, we tried to help those fuckin' spics–'" I watched the knife with perverse satisfaction this time as it jerked in his hand "‘–but they can't even help themselves.'" I leaned forward so that I was within easy striking distance of the weapon.  "I want to thank you in advance for proving that son of a bitch right."

As if in slow motion, I watched, detached, as the desire to slice me open crossed his features.  Then before I registered the threat had passed, he had spun around and sheathed the knife.  "_Vamenos!_" he shouted, and swept out the door, his confused cohorts following along a few moments later like wayward sheep.

After an eternity, I stood on rubbery legs and walked toward the examining room.  The sound of sirens cut through the thick night air.  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_October 7, 1983_  
 

I wasn't surprised to see him when I got home from the police station.  It was just after three a.m. and he was sitting up for me like Dad used to on the nights of the school dances.  As I had with Dad, I knew there was a lecture coming.  But if he thought I'd be in the mood for one any more than I had been at sixteen, he was sorely mistaken.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," I chirped, enjoying the banality of the phrase in the midst of a life that was no longer the least bit banal.

"You're turning into a real loose cannon, Doc," he murmured.  The tone wasn't the one I was expecting.  It wasn't patronizing, in fact it was the opposite.  It warmed me in placed I'd forgotten were cold.  But wariness set in right behind the warmth.  Was he trying to derail me before this argument had even started?

"Yeah," I drawled, the word not an admission.  "I'm not even going to bother to ask how you found out so quickly."

"Esteban Ramirez is a friend of BA's."

"Of course.  All you alpha males are acquainted.  Do you find each other by scent?"

"His cousin runs the day care where BA volunteers."

I sighed.  Fifteen-love for the Colonel.  "Look, Hannibal, this was already the mother of all days before those guys showed up, and now..."  I trailed off, not sure how much energy I had left for a confrontation with this man.

"Now–what?"  Blue eyes reflected the dim light, demanded an answer.

"Now is not the time for the fatherly advice to the weak little lady about the big, bad city."

He didn't respond for several seconds, just watched me while I tried not to shift from foot to foot like a guilty teenager.  "Is that what you think I came here for?" he finally asked quietly.  "To be your daddy?"

"No," I admitted.  "That would be a little too Freudian, at least from my end.  I'm just too angry and tired for this, Hannibal.  Can we do it in the morning?"

He considered again, and I was annoyed to find myself holding my breath.  "I've got a better idea," he told me, rising to his feet.  "We won't do it at all.  But for the record, Doc, I didn't come over here to tell you how to live your life.  I'm not stupid or arrogant enough to think I've got the right to tell anybody anything on that subject.  People are entitled to their own mistakes, as far as I'm concerned, and I've got no problem letting you make yours."  He turned and started for the door.

"Wait!"  I hated the sound of need in my voice, but suddenly I was desperate to know–everything.  Anything.  "Why did you come?"

He pivoted abruptly, and I could tell from the way he held himself that he was angry, suddenly, fiercely angry, as if the emotion had overcome his efforts to control it.   "I came to see if you were all right.  I came because when I heard what had happened, I wanted to–" He cut himself off abruptly and shook his head.

I didn't press him to finish.  The look in his eyes had rendered me incapable of coherent speech.

When he spoke again, I had to strain to hear him.  "I haven't wanted anything in a long time, Doc."

"Neither have I," I whispered back.  "It's a pain in the ass, isn't it?"

A laugh barrelled out of him.  "Yeah.  It sure is."

I approached him cautiously, as you might a dangerous jungle animal.  Of course, you would have to be partly insane to even consider doing such a thing.  But I wasn't feeling all that stable right at this moment.

One of his big hands came up to cup my jaw, and I was reduced to nerve endings.  His fingers stroking my cheek, his lips on the skin over my temple.  The experience of that unexpected tenderness was a blinding, suffocating wave that robbed me of breath.

"Time for bed," he murmured.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

I awoke with a start to find him gone.  The midmorning light was streaming through my window, and for a panicked moment I feared I had overslept.  Then, memories of the previous night washed over me, and I recalled turning off my alarm.  We had earned a day off; the relief staff from the hospital had agreed to take over the clinic.

Debating with myself for all of three seconds, I decided to get up.  Lazing away the morning would give me too much opportunity for introspection.  Housecleaning and other neglected chores would keep my mind occupied so that I didn't have time to think about anything that had happened last night.

Thoughts of the four punks who had invaded the clinic would be dispelled with laundry and window cleaner, but what about Hannibal?  He had taken me to bed after our curious non- argument, but for the first time in our short history it wasn't for sex.  I shivered, remembering the sensation of his strong arms wrapped around me, not to lend comfort, it seemed, but to take it, to reassure himself that I was still whole.  The sense of power it conferred on me was heady–and frightening.   But was I more afraid for him, or for myself?   Would I be slowly destroyed wondering if the next job might be the one that finally killed him?

I forced myself to consider the possibility.  What if I picked up the paper this morning, tomorrow, a year from now, and read that he had been killed, shot by some hood like Dead Eyes or by the army?  He was a cat with nine lives just like the rest of ‘em, and he'd thought of more ways to use them up than anyone I knew.  Would I be better off never having known his touch, his strength, even his heart, if he ever allowed it to make itself known?   But how could I claim to want to reconstruct my life if I denied myself this chance to feel?

–It's a hard thing to remember just how much you had before it all started.  If you thought about it too much, you'd get so's wanting it back was all you could think about.  And that's no good for any of us.–

And what about Murdock's theory, that his C.O. was no longer on his game, shorn by Delilah and vulnerable to attack?  What if he used up his ninth life because he was too busy worrying about me to think about himself or the rest of his team?  Was this desire to pursue the relationship merely the ultimate display of selfishness on my part?

A stab of pain lanced through my temple.  Obviously, it was time to get cleaning.  I showered and dressed quickly, and literally bounded into my kitchen–

–where Hannibal Smith sat calmly reading the weekend Times.

"Jesus," I breathed.

"Nope," he deadpanned, folding the paper, "just me."

I placed my hands on my hips.  "There is no ‘just you,' goddammit.  That's my goddamned problem."

"You'll turn my head with all this sweet talk."  He grinned the canary-eating grin that turned my insides to mush.  My palms itched to touch him anywhere, everywhere.  I had been cocooned in his embrace mere hours ago; how could the yearning have descended on me again so quickly?

Angry at my indecision and my need, cornered like a wounded thing, I pounced.  "I don't even know what to call you anymore.  Hannibal or John?  Are you ten feet tall, spitting dynamite and bullets, or flesh and blood, real like the rest of us?"

Blue eyes saw through me as though I were made of glass; cornered animals were his specialty.  "Which way is easier?"

"I don't know if I want easy." _ I'm tired of easy_, my brain screamed.  _I want messy, with arms and legs and heartbeats and laughter–_

He stood, stepped away from the table.

"But maybe it would be better for you–"

"I can make my own decisions on that," he ground out, taking a step closer.

"Can you?"  I stayed still, not trusting my legs to carry me in either direction.  "Can you?" I demanded this time.

"Yeah," he admitted.  "I decided to walk out the door six times this morning.  But I decided to come back six times, too."

I ventured a small smile.  "That's a lot of decisions."

His eyes danced.  "Hadn't made any for a few hours.  I was out of practice."

"How do you do that?" I whispered.  At his raised eyebrow, I elaborated.  "Defuse me when I feel like a ticking time bomb, about to shatter."

He came closer, reached out to take my shoulders between his hands.  "Dunno, Doc.  But that'd be a real shame.  I like all of your pieces where they are."

"Hannibal," I breathed, and his arms enfolded me.  "John.  Oh, whoever the hell–" I cut myself off when my mouth collided with his.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

Sensing the change in me, the leader allowed himself to be led.  I tumbled him back onto my bed and spent long minutes exploring him, still fully clothed, with the pads of my fingers.  Then my parted lips travelled the places my hands had visited, seeking minute changes in temperature and texture.    I did not speak, and he offered no wisecracks or wisdom; he knew this was different, this was important to me, a mapping expedition to chart new territory.

When I started to undress him, he did not reciprocate, merely sat up and watched me with those eyes of bottomless glacier ice.  There was no savage attack, no rush to passion, only a slow fire that kindled in the centre of me and spread outward through nerves and blood and bone.   I removed his Model 39 first, trailing my fingers around his waistband, then tugging it free and gingerly placing it on the bedside table.  After discarding his shirt, I kneeled down to tend to his boots and socks, then slowly climbed his body, touching him only with my left cheek.  When I reached his collarbone, I turned my nose into the hollow there and darted my tongue out to taste his flesh.  My hands stayed on either side of him, fists clenching and unclenching rhythmically, digging into the mattress.

Without words, I pulled him to his feet, my next target his belt buckle.  It seemed like an eternity before I managed to remove all of his clothing, but finally I was able to pause in my relentless advance to admire and marvel.  Primitive emotion warred with complex as I beheld him; my first thought was: mine, _mine_.  Then the wave of wonderment supplanted the desire, and I became fascinated by the signs of a life lived that made up his terrain.  An immense pride washed over me, pride in my possession of such a proud man, scarred yet gloriously alive.   On its heels came an overpowering feeling so vast it nearly knocked me down.  _Too much to think about,_ I admonished myself.  _Just–love him.  Love him._

Hell.

"What is it?" I realized he had spoken the first words since we had entered my bedroom, and he had done so because I had gone completely still.  I wasn't sure how long I had been that way.

Shaking my head to clear it, I found myself saying the only words that came to my head. "You're_–_you're more than I thought to hope for."   Oh, God.  Why had I blurted that?   What had possessed me to breathe one of those four-letter words that made men tuck their tails between their legs and run for the hills?

But instead of retreating, he smiled slowly, without a trace of flippancy.  The blue gaze warmed, caressed my face.  "I know what you mean," he murmured, leaning in for a gentle kiss that quickly turned white-hot.  I lost my sense of the horizon momentarily as the undertow dragged me down.  My world narrowed to the friction of lips and tongue, the jut of his erection pressing against my jeans-clad stomach.  It took all my will to break the contact.

"Ah, is this where we switch hitters?" he asked, trailing one finger down the front of my blouse.

"No," I growled.  My resolve renewed, I revelled in the sense of power flowing through my limbs.   I pushed him back on the bed so hard he bounced, then reached for my own buttons.  "This is where you get to watch."  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_November 3, 1983_  
 

"Abby!" I called out as my friend passed the examining room door.  "Could you grab me a box of gloves from the back?"

Abby paused and turned to me with a knowing grin, and I felt my face heat.  "Sure.  I was just going to get you some tongue depressors anyway.  You're nearly out of those, too."

I sighed heavily, turning my attention back to the file in my hands.  My next patient was due to come in in two minutes, and of course I had run out of something again.  I used to have the capacity to remember simple things, to keep track of the minutiae of life without thinking about it, but for the past month that capacity had left me.  Now I spent my spare brain power in contemplation of Big Questions, and that left no energy for mundane considerations such as rubber gloves and tongue depressors.

I was turning into a complete and total basket case.  Not a terribly precise, medical term, but nonetheless accurate.  Trouble was, I was enjoying myself too much to care.

"Doctor Margaret Sullivan?"

I didn't look up from the file.  The voice was gravelly, harsh, and my patient was five.  Dad must be getting antsy.  "I'll be right with you, Mister..." I trailed off as my head lifted and I registered an olive drab uniform.

"Colonel Roderick Decker, ma'am.  Can we talk privately?"

I tried to calm my heart rate, but my pulse rocketed.  I was sure he could see my jugular pounding like a scared rabbit's.  "I have patients, Colonel.  Perhaps you could come back during my lunch break, in about an hour and a half."  _Or never_, I silently added, willing him to disappear.  _Not now, not now, dammit, don't make this more of a mess than it already is...._

"It really can't wait, Doctor.  I'll only keep you from your patients a few minutes."  He turned slightly to close the door, and I for an insane instant I was able to imagine what it was like to be hunted and cornered.  Was this the feeling he carried with him, in the background of his consciousness, like a chronic, nagging ache?

"I know your time is valuable, so I'll stick to the facts.  We know you know Smith, and that you've been seeing him."

I felt gut-punched.  I had never been one to believe in government conspiracies, so the reality of it was even more shocking.  "I've been under surveillance?"

Decker nodded curtly.  "Off and on.  We think you might wish to help us."

"And what might make you think that?"

The Colonel arched an eyebrow.  "Patriotism, Captain?"  He laughed at my expression, not a pleasant sound.  "I didn't think so.  How about the prospect of this clinic closing its doors permanently should you refuse to comply?"

I shuttered my features against further reaction, and hoped it worked.  Over the past ten years I'd gotten exceptionally good at burying my feelings.  I pitched my voice lower, speaking deliberately.  "Cut to the chase, Colonel."

"All right.  You've been attending sessions at the VA hospital.  Counselling sessions to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder."  He ground out the term as though it were akin to venereal disease.

Rage boiled up in me, but I fought it down.  "That's confidential information."

"Yes, it certainly is.  I don't think your current employers would be too happy if it were no longer confidential."

"My current employers know about the sessions."

"But the press doesn't.  And information gets leaked sometimes."

I shook my head.  "No.  It doesn't matter.  I'll resign, and that will be the end of it."

He leaned in close, and I willed myself to stand my ground.  A slow, reptilian smile crossed his craggy face.  "I can certainly see what keeps him coming around.  But all your piss and vinegar won't protect this clinic when you get hauled up on charges for aiding and abetting a federal criminal.  I'll make sure the stink in the press and the pressure on the city makes this little operation shut its doors–permanently."  The smile was replaced by a brittle, cold determination that I'd seen in Hannibal's eyes.  "I've been after Smith for a long, long time.  Make no mistake, Doctor;  I won't let anything stand in my way."

A sharp rap sounded on the door then, cutting off my reply, and Abby poked her head in.  "Here you go," she announced, then her face showed surprise as Decker spun on his heel.  "Rod!  What in hell are you doing here?"

His eyes narrowed, then widened. "Abby?"

"Of all the people to run into in East L.A.," Abby laughed.  Her gaze skittered over me, read me like a book, but her grin didn't falter.  I remembered what a formidable poker player she had been. She laid the supplies on the counter, then walked forward to enfold him in a bear hug. "God, it must be a dozen years if it's a day.  How are you doing?"

"Fine," he replied, returning her embrace uneasily.  "Just fine."

Abby turned to me.  "Rod and I go way back.  Before I met you.  He came into China Beach with wounds to his...well, that's not important, is it?  He never told me how he got them anyway.  But they healed up just beautifully."  Her grin turned suggestive, and Decker shifted nervously.  "By the way, how's Julia?"

"Great.  Wonderful.  We celebrated our twentieth anniversary last week."

"Good for you.  Too many marriages break up nowadays."  She let the silence build, then added, "You free for lunch?  I'm off in about an hour.  We could–catch up."

"Thanks, but no.  I'm needed back at the base."

"Too bad," she pouted, trailing one hand down his arm and clasping his hand briefly.  "Another time, maybe."

"Yes," Decker agreed, his gaze descending on me for a final blow.  "Another time."

When he had gone, I collapsed into a chair, my muscles no longer functioning.  "Jesus, Abby," I croaked, all the adrenalin draining out of me and leaving me shaking, "you screwed that?"

"Hey, what can I tell you?" she drawled, taking the chair opposite mine.  "He was human once.  And I thought I was straight once."  She looked at the closed door, an unidentifiable expression on her face.  "I barely recognized him," she whispered.  Then she shook her head as if to clear it.  "What did he want from you?"

I concentrated on breathing in and out.  "Everything."  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_November 5, 1983_  
 

I had to wait until my next scheduled session to take a chance on getting to Murdock.  If I went to the hospital on a day I wasn't supposed to be there, I would certainly arouse suspicion.  Mind you, speaking on any day to the pilot associated with the A-Team wasn't exactly the height of discretion, but I knew no other way to contact Hannibal, and I was no good at this cloak-and- dagger stuff.  Of course, my agonizing over the situation could be fruitless, anyway; they could be off on one of their jobs and both of them could be gone.

After a brief inquiry of one of the duty nurses, I was told Murdock was seeing a visitor on the grounds.  I walked out of the building, trying to appear nonchalant, the folded note burning a hole in the pocket of my jeans.  I had agonized over the writing of that, too.  Oh, hell, enough.  Just so long as it served its purpose.

There.  I caught a glimpse of the lanky pilot over by a large bush, and changed direction as casually as possible.  As I approached, I was taken aback to see him disappear in the foliage.  So much for discretion.  It would be just my luck to get myself arrested for assault on an unarmed shrub.

I was within about ten feet of the bush when I spied a young woman anxiously darting her gaze from me to Murdock's hiding spot.  She was about thirty, with shortish dark hair and wide, blue eyes.  Her manner reminded me of a deer, her carriage graceful even in her nervous state.

Howling Mad Murdock had himself a girl?   At any other time, the thought would have made me glad for him; now it just depressed me.  Or was that an ugly shade of green lurking just under the skin?

"You, uh, a friend of the man in there?" I asked her without preamble, cocking my head toward the greenery.

Her mouth formed a perfect O.  "Wh-what man?" she stammered.

I smiled in spite of myself.  "Why, the Slick jockey hiding in the lilac, of course," I told her sweetly.

She stared at me for a moment or two, then seemed to visibly yield to the absurdity of the situation.  "Murdock," she stage-whispered, keeping an eye out for white-coated orderlies, "there's someone here to see you."

A high-pitched, lisping whine emerged from the bush.  "But I'm not decent!  I simply can't see anyone until I've gotten rid of this terrible shine!"  A hairy hand poked out of the foliage.  "Have you any Pan-Cake?"

I sighed heavily.  "I don't want to know," I muttered.  Rooting around in my purse, I dug out some liquid concealer.  "How's this?" I demanded, slapping it into the palm.

Fingers wrapped around the tube, the hand receded again.  "It'll have to do," pouted the shrub.

Turning my attention back to the younger woman, I decided to try to make conversation.  "So, do you come here often?"

She surprised me with a burst of laughter.  "I suppose this does look a bit strange, doesn't it?" she grinned.  Her joy should have been infectious, but I was swiftly becoming immune to the disease.

"Well, I'm no longer competent to be a judge of that particular commodity," I demurred.  "Is he going on a job with–" I cut myself off abruptly as I realized what I had been about to say.  I didn't even know who she was.  Besides, if she didn't know her flyboy was about to go off and risk his foolish neck, who was I to tell her?

But she only shook her head.  "No.  I'm helping him so that we can–ah, that is, so that he can visit me," she faltered, her cheeks turning pink.  "You see, he can't just sign himself out any time he wants to.  And I live–that is, some distance away, and–"

"I understand," I nodded, forestalling further embarrassing explanations.

Her eyes took on a faraway look.  "I don't know how it happened.  You go along living this quiet life, and it's all right, it's what you're used to, I suppose, and so you tell yourself you're happy.  And then one day something completely unexpected happens and turns everything upside down, and when you can stand on your feet again you realize you've been living in this tiny, cramped box all this time.  You couldn't see what was outside of it, but now–" She trailed off and smiled self-consciously.  "I'm sorry.  I was just trying to explain...you see, this isn't like me at all."  Her gaze turned inward.  "At least what I thought was me."

I swallowed around the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat.  "Yeah," I rasped.  "I've been having identity problems lately, too."

"That makes three of us, sugah!" exclaimed the bush, which trembled and shook and vomited out  Murdock in a flourish of lace and a cloud of lavender perfume.  As he dusted leaves off his crinolines, I marvelled at the transformation, which was actually fairly effective.  He was a dead ringer for Granny Clampett.  If she had been six feet tall and had a predilection for hi-tops.

"Oh no, I forgot the shoes!" exclaimed his girlfriend.

"It's all right," he soothed, shaking out the skirt so that it covered his sneakers.  "I'll take small steps."  He leaned forward to buss her on the cheek, and my throat tightened again.

"Murdock," I began, suddenly needing to get out of there as quickly as possible.

"Hey, Doc," he grinned, "can I keep that makeup?  It worked wonders on my seven signs of aging,"

"Sure, sure," I agreed hastily.  "Uh, listen, I know you're headed out of town, but could you get a message to Hannibal first?  It's urgent."

Murdock snapped his fingers, then began digging around in his ample bosom.  "‘Scuse me," he murmured, then turned his back to us.  I rolled my eyes skyward.  When he turned back around, he held a note identical to mine in his hand.

"What's that?" I demanded, my stomach churning because I already knew the answer.

"It's from the Colonel.  He wanted me to give it to you."

"What does it say?"

"Well, I don't rightly know, but I think he wants you to meet him."

I blinked.  "He doesn't understand.  I'm being followed."

Murdock nodded.  "Uh huh.  He knows.  That's why he wanted me to give you the message."

The ground I was standing on started to revolve slowly.  "Now I know who I am.  I must be Alice, down the rabbit hole."

The younger woman smiled up at Murdock and gave him a look that could melt the heart of a statue.  "I know exactly how you feel."  
   
   
   
   
 

_November 7, 1983_  
 

The weather was unusually cold for November in L.A., and the wind bit at my stockinged ankles as I walked briskly along Rodeo Drive.  I had memorized and destroyed the instructions Hannibal had passed to Murdock, and was now on a royal goose chase through the upscale shops.  At the last one, his lieutenant, Templeton Peck, had greeted me with a megawatt grin and another set of directions.  I felt like I was in a low-budget spy movie.  At any moment Boris and Natasha would pop out from behind a potted palm, and I would be off to Siberia in a crate.

Not that the prospect of confronting Hannibal was any more appealing at this point.  Somehow I had convinced myself that the Dear John letter would allow me to escape any messy scenes, but even if that particular plan had worked out, I was foolish to think he wouldn't have come after me to demand an explanation.  Better to get it over with now, I supposed.

It wasn't long before I reached what I hoped was my final destination, a trendy clothing store that I ordinarily wouldn't be caught dead in.  Thankfully, it wasn't likely the MPs had studied my shopping habits.  Stepping inside, I surveyed the interior of the shop, which was decked out in the latest in ‘80s tacky: bright, eye-wounding colours, chrome in abundance, and a preponderance of over-the-hill women who were still trying to convince themselves they were hip. Too bad they didn't understand they had last been hip when the pillbox hat and the beehive hairdo were the living end.  And ‘hip' had been a word that people used in conversation.

"Can I help you, madame?" I spun at the sound of the voice behind me, and was confronted by a pompadoured Hannibal, covered from head to toe in crushed velvet.   I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.  He loved nothing better than putting one over on the rest of the world, and I loved....well.  Best not to think about that just this minute.

"Have you got anything in lime?" I enquired innocently.  About half the store's merchandise fit that description.

"Hmmm...." He laid a finger across his lips in a pensive gesture, then scanned the racks.  "We seem to be woefully understocked.  However, I believe we might have something out back that would suit you wonderfully."

"I'll just bet you do," I muttered.  Hannibal bowed and raised a hand in the direction he wanted me to go, and I willed my feet to move.

He guided me past the changing rooms to a small office, where he closed the door behind us.  Once inside, he removed the wig and divested himself of the maroon jacket.

"Did you leave your car at home?" he asked.

I snapped off a salute.  "As ordered."

He shot me a look but made no comment.  "The van's out back.  I apologize for putting you through all this, but it was necessary.  This way, we can get out of L.A. for a couple of days, figure out–"

"–A plan?"

He nodded slowly, perhaps sensing my rising panic.  "Something like that."

I took a deep breath.  "You're taking a big chance on getting caught.  I can't move every couple of months like you do.  What happens after this?"

A Cheshire smile played about his lips.  "I haven't thought that far ahead yet.  But I will."

I forced myself to maintain eye contact with him.  I couldn't afford to drag this out, or there would be nothing left of me by the end of it.  "And what if I don't want to live that way?  What if I don't want to always be one step ahead of the MPs?"

His jaw tightened, but there was no betrayal of emotion in his voice.  "I've never let the Lynches and Deckers of this world dictate what I do."

I didn't miss the implied statement: _Neither should you._  "That's fine for you, Hannibal.  You've got no ties to this world, except to men who live the same way you do.  But I've got responsibilities.  That son of a bitch threatened the clinic.  I can't let him–"

"He can't do anything to you and he knows it.  I know how MPs work, especially REMFs like him.  They don't have the guts to follow through.  It's only a scare tactic."

I shook my head vehemently.  He was starting to sway me, and I promised myself I wouldn't let that happen.  "No.  If it was just me, I could take that chance.  But I can't gamble with those peoples' lives.  Don't ask me to.  Please."

His gaze froze over.  Good.  That would make it easier.  "I'm not asking you for anything."

"No," I admitted with more sadness than I was expecting, "you never have, have you?  And maybe that's part of the problem.  I'm not exactly sure where I fit in this puzzle that is your life.  Murdock once likened me to an extra piece, and ever since then I've been debating about whether I would be a liability to you in the end.  Well, it turns out I am.  And it would be one thing if you needed me to be a part of the puzzle, if you wanted to pick it up and make it fit, but you're not comfortable with taking."  I stepped closer to him, daring myself to brave his gravity.  Reaching up, I caressed his cheek, then trailed my fingertips over that too-sensual mouth.  "You've given me so much, Hannibal;  God, you'll never know how much.  It's just that after a while it's not enough to always be on the receiving end."  I stood on tiptoe to give him a brief kiss, which he didn't return.  "I suppose this is all I can give you."

I walked out the door, and mercifully, he didn't follow.  But an hour later, sitting alone in my empty kitchen, I stared at the play of dappled sunlight over the surface of the table and wished with everything in me that he had.  
   
   
   
   
 

_June 12, 1984_  
 

The alarm clock shocked me awake with an obnoxious British disco tune.  I rolled over and punched at it ineffectually.

"Jezush," I slurred.  "Why've you got it on that shtashun?"

"I used to doze off with the buzzer, but this crap is sure to get me up."  A big hand reached over me and hit the off button, then trailed back over my midsection possessively.  "You want coffee?"

"Are you kidding me?"

He chuckled, then I felt the bed jiggle as he stood.  "If you're not up in five more minutes, it's the cattle prod for you, honey."

"Promishes, promishes."  Fingers brushed back my hair, and lips pressed against my forehead.  I cracked an eye open and watched the view as he receded into the bathroom.  Not bad at all, I conceded.

If I could just manage to stop comparing him to Hannibal.

"Frank?"

He spun around, sandy eyebrows raised.  "Yeah?"

"Make it strong, will you?"

He stared at me for a moment.  "Sure, babe."

I buried my head in the pillow and tried to muster the energy to get out of bed.  I had met Frank at the VA counselling sessions; he had shown up just after Christmas, and I had gravitated to him instantly.  He had been a medic in ‘Nam, and like many in the group, had drifted from job to job after coming home, never satisfied, running from demons.  Finally, about four years ago an inheritance from his father had allowed him to transform a dream of his into reality.  Today, he was the founder and CEO of a nursing home built on a radical principle: that the residents should actually control the day-to-day running of the facility.  It kept the costs low and the retirees healthy by giving them a sense of purpose many had lost.  He had already recruited a couple of the medical personnel from the VA sessions for his next project, which was under construction in Anaheim.

It was enough to make me wonder if I was developing an irresistible attraction to slayers of dragons.  Saint George, look out; this gal is on the prowl.

Believe me, I had done a considerable amount of soul searching before getting involved with Frank.  I had debated about the pros and cons of dating a vet, especially one with a history similar to mine.  I wanted to confront my past, not immerse myself in it every waking moment. But Frank and I did have a lot more in common than the war, as I discovered through our initial, cautious, deliberately casual dates. And ultimately, the possibility of having a "normal" relationship was too tempting; I realized one day that I wanted to see if I could have the chance at a picket fence after all.

Enough navel-gazing.  I pushed myself up on my elbows and surveyed the room.  It was a gorgeous Southern California Saturday morning, and Frank and I were going to the wine country for the weekend, just like any other professional couple might do.  It was so normal I wasn't entirely convinced it was my life.

The bedside phone rang, and I waited for Frank to get it.  When the third ring came and went, I yelled, "Want me to answer that?"

"No, I'm coming," he shouted back, and I heard his footsteps pound down the hall, toward the kitchen.  Why hadn't he chosen to take this phone, which was much closer?  Something tingled along my spine, but I ignored it.  Bouncing to my feet, I entered the bathroom he had just left for a quick shower.

When I emerged, he was already fully dressed, with an anxious expression I'd never seen on him before.  He was the opposite of Hannibal in that respect; everything he felt was immediately apparent in his face.  Abby loved playing poker with him.

"What is it?"

"I'm sorry, Mo.  It's a bit of trouble at the home.  One of my staff called in sick and I can't find anybody to fill in.  Most people are–"

"On vacation?" I asked.

"Yeah," he muttered, his hands reaching out to clasp my shoulders.  "I know you must be disappointed."

"It's okay.  I had a ton of paperwork to finish anyway."

"Now I really feel guilty."

I brought his head down for a kiss.  "You can't help it.  There'll be other weekends."

His face registered an unrecognizable emotion.  "Yeah.  Mo–" he began, then cut himself off. "You, ah, got your key?"

I nodded.

"Coffee's almost ready.  Take your time.  I'll call you tonight if I get the chance."  And after another brief, hard kiss, he was gone.

A while later, I fought down the sense of disquiet as I finished my second cup of coffee.  In the past year I had done more thinking about life, love and the pursuit of happiness than I had done in the preceding ten.  Why the hell couldn't things be straightforward and boring?  I missed boring.

The phone interrupted my musings again, and I considered answering it.  What would await me on the other end?  A jealous lover?  A bitter ex-wife?  The ringing drilled through my skull, until the machine finally kicked in.  My heart pounded while the outgoing message played.  But when it ended, the voice that followed it was definitely not female.

"Morelli, you there?" The gravelly baritone on the other end paused.  "Good.  Nice to know you come when called.  Just remember this; the Anaheim project is cancelled, as of yesterday.  Or we'll cancel you, asshole."  Then I heard the click of the machine, and a couple of electronic beeps.

So much for normal.  
  

  
   
   
   
 

_June 19, 1984_  
 

It had taken me a whole week to muster up the nerve to do this, but that nerve seemed to dissipate with each step as I walked toward the patients' lounge to meet Murdock.  I hadn't spoken to Murdock in over six months, though we occasionally waved to each other on the hospital grounds.  The loss of his friendship was just another hole in my life that I had created when I walked out of that store last November.

The lounge was half-empty when I peeked in, but a quick scan of the room revealed Murdock  over by the window in one of the worn, overstuffed leather chairs.  He was sitting cross-legged, his knees pushed upward by the low arms, and had his eyes closed and head bowed.   With his spare frame, he resembled a doubled-over grasshopper.

"Don't tell me you've taken up yoga," I told him as I took the seat across from his.

He sucked in a breath and let it out as though he were in Lamaze training, and I noticed his T- shirt today advised you to turn on, tune in and drop your pants.  His eyes remained closed as he shook his head.

"I am attempting to find my center," he intoned.

"Tell me about it," I muttered.  "How've you been?"

"Time is irrelevant.  Space is the final frontier," he returned, eyes still shut.  "And yourself?"

"Fine.  Great."  Totally bugfuck, if you really want to know.  But it wouldn't be a bright idea to get into that right now, particularly here.  "Murdock, I'm sorry I–haven't been around as much.  To see you, I mean."

"That is the way of all things," Murdock intoned in his Dalai Lama voice.

"What is?" I asked, already dreading the answer.

"Endings.  Beginnings.  Endings again.  The cycles of life."

"Yeah.  Well, I'm coming back as something simpler next time.  An ant or a cockroach, maybe.  You're born, you lay a million eggs, you die.  What's easier than that?"

Brown eyes snapped open and studied me intently.  I felt like I had started on that cockroach cycle a little early.  "How are you, Doc?"

My heart broke open at the warmth in his voice.  "Not so good," I whispered, then closed my own eyes briefly.  He was the last person I should be burdening.  Well, the next to last.  And I was about to drop on both of them like a five-hundred pound bomb.  "I, uh, I have a friend who might need your help.  I mean, the four of you."

He nodded, returning temporarily to the land of the lucid.  "You want me to arrange a meeting?"

"Uh, yeah," I stammered.  I hated stammering.  "I–he doesn't know.  It's not something I've talked to him about."

"What's his problem?"

"I think someone's–scratch that, I know someone's trying to stop him from building his new nursing home in Anaheim.  Maybe wants to put the one he's got out of business, too.  He's been losing staff recently, about four in the last week alone."

"Sounds like you know him pretty well," Murdock suggested, arching a curved eyebrow.

"I thought I did," I managed.  "He hasn't taken me into his confidence on this.  I found out–on my own.  But I can't think of any other way to help him.  If I could–" I ran out of things to say at that point, so I decided to shut my mouth.

"When worlds collide," Murdock opined, steepling his long fingers, "there is often a big cleaning bill."

I sighed and smiled at him thinly.  "I think I'll have that put on a T-shirt.  It might remind me not to try anything this stupid again."  
   
  

  
   
   
 

_June 21, 1984_  
 

"There it is."

Frank turned the wheel of the Volvo in the direction of my pointing finger.  To say the garage was nondescript was a gross exaggeration.  To say it was ready for the wrecking ball was more apt.  The rusting, tumble-down structure wasn't likely to attract attention; in fact, even the rats wouldn't be interested in this neighbourhood.

"You sure this is the place?"

I couldn't keep a smile from playing about my lips.  "Oh, yeah.  I'm sure."

Frank sighed, but obediently brought the car up to the door and idled the engine.  It had taken a long night of arguments and frayed nerves, but I had finally convinced him that this was worth a try.  I had managed to wrestle the truth out of him after confronting him about the phone message.  The trouble had started nearly a month ago, and since then, he had been losing staff at an increasing pace, probably due to threats.  All he had ever seen were the hired goons who fronted for the Great and Powerful Oz behind the curtain.  He wasn't sure who he had managed to piss off, but he had certain suspicions, completely unfounded and unprovable.  He hadn't come up with a plan, and had been about to sell the Anaheim property in the hopes that would make it all go away.  I pushed him to the admission that whoever was doing this was not going to stop once a concession was made.  It was time to consider another option, a radical one.

The trouble was, while Frank was used to unorthodox thinking, he was first and foremost a peaceful man.  Hiring a posse of Special Forces types trained in wet work was not anyone's idea of the peaceful solution.  And hence the all-night argument.

And just to complicate matters further, while my primary focus should have been Frank and his current difficulties, my mind kept returning to a single thought.  Why, oh why, did I have to face Hannibal with bags under my eyes that were only slightly smaller than the state of Wyoming?

"Maybe they're not here," Frank muttered, and as if on cue, the garage door began to slide upwards.  Pursing his lips, he shifted into gear and inched the sedan forward.

I stepped out of the car and forced my eyes to scan the dimly lit interior.  Steeling myself for the blow had been useless, as I had suspected; the electric blue shock of his gaze was still enough to jolt me out of my shoes.  Guilt, fear, apprehension, and about twenty other emotions I didn't care to name fought each other inside my gut.  I was sure he must be able to read me like a cheap potboiler, but he was impossible to decipher, neither overly cold nor overly familiar.  He was just– there.  The presence spoke for itself, saying everything and nothing at the same time.

He took a step forward and extended his ungloved hand to Frank.  "I'm Hannibal Smith."  Nodding, he introduced his team members, and I exchanged a smile with Murdock.  Peck and Baracus looked a little nonplussed, as though they hadn't been briefed on my involvement.

"Maggie tells us you've got a little problem."  I couldn't help reacting to that statement, not because of its banality but because of the use of my name.  He had never called me anything but Doc before this.

"I do, but I'm not sure you can help me."  Frank stood with his arms loosely at his sides, but I could tell he was wound tighter than a mainspring.

"Well, here's the thing, Mister Morelli," Hannibal drawled, lighting his cigar calmly, "It's not my job to sell you on me.  People usually look for us because they want our services."

"Look," I interrupted, sensing this whole conversation was about to go south, "we talked about this.  At least let them evaluate the situation and decide whether or not this might work."

Frank shook his head.  Turning to me and lowering his voice, he murmured, "I'm sorry.  But I told you this would be difficult for me."

"Yeah," muttered Peck, folding his arms, "it's tough admitting that baby-killers like us are good for something every now and then."

"Face," Hannibal warned over his shoulder.

The younger man's handsome features hardened in a way I had seen before.  "Christ, Hannibal, he's standing there with an arrest record longer than ours, and he's got principles?"

My insides flipped over.  Of course they would have investigated him.  And they would have uncovered a long history of association with the antiwar movement and other left-wing causes.  So much for this bright idea.  In my mind's eye I saw B.A. Baracus and the rest of the boys ripping poor Frank a new and painful orifice.

Frank was standing his ground, a foolhardy but admirable position.  "I figured I was entitled to protest my country's policies after seeing the kind of damage they did first hand," he bristled.  "We were doing what we could to bring you home faster."

"You and Jane Fonda," snorted Peck.

Baracus tossed off one of his patented disdainful looks.  "Man, we didn't want to go home.  We was doin' our jobs."

"You know," Hannibal grinned, gesturing with his cigar, "we knew a damn good medic in country, didn't we, guys?"  His comrades immediately fell silent.

"Uh hunh," Murdock finally agreed.  "We sure did."

"You see," he continued, "the Teams were usually made up of five men.  We were all cross- trained, but there was usually a designated pilot–" he indicated Murdock "–and a medic.  Ours was a Spec Four, right out of the corn belt.  I don't think he knew his left from his right before he joined the Army.  But when he made the Green Berets, he was one tough SOB.  He'd seen a lot of his friends die, and he was determined not to be one of them."  He shook his head.  "He knew more about weaponry than the rest of us put together, and could blow the reproductive organs off a mosquito at a hundred yards.  When I recommended that he be sent up for medic training, he howled a blue streak.

"But I needed a medic in the Team, and so up he went.  And a few months later we were working a counter-insurgency mission among the Yards.  What a godforsaken life they led.  Stone Age conditions, and the Vietnamese treated them about as well as we treated the Indians. It wasn't exactly a leave in Tokyo, but Trigger loved it.  Not because he could teach the men to shoot, which he could, but because he could create something for a change.  He delivered sixteen babies, set an old woman's broken leg, and healed more scrapes and bruises than you could count.  He was finally back to where he started, you see.  He'd raised his younger brothers and sisters, so caring came naturally to him.  It was just that he'd forgotten how.

"Most of us," he reflected, his eyes locking with mine, "never learned in the first place."

After several seconds, I began to breathe again.

"I remember watching him goin' through the village one day," Baracus mused.  "He had about twenty kids followin' him, like the Pied Piper or somethin'."

"And then there were four," murmured Peck.

Silence descended for a few moments.  Frank was the first to break it.

"All right," he told Hannibal, "what do you want me to do?"  
   
  

  
   
   
 

_June 23, 1984_  
 

It hadn't occurred to me that Frank might not want my help.  And so I hopped into my Chevy POS early in the morning of my day off and drove an hour on molasses-slow freeways to the nursing home.  He was short staffed, and working nearly around the clock, and I could fill in just about any position he needed, from doctor to bedpan swabber.  No problem.

"I guess I'm trying to tell you I have a problem with you being here."  In the dining room, breakfast was underway, and Murdock was flitting from table to table, passing out toast and coffee like an old pro.  The clink of silverware protected our conversation from prying ears.

"Why?" I gaped, completely at a loss to explain his attitude.

"I don't want you hurt."  He cast a glance at Hannibal, who was standing at the other end of the room conferring with Peck.  "And these guys are in the business of hurting people."

I cleared my throat.  "Sometimes they're the ones who get hurt," I managed, unprepared for the image of a wounded Hannibal that flashed before my eyes.

"Exactly.  Which is why you should be as far away from it as possible."

"Let me get this straight," I began, taking a step forward.  "I served three tours in Vietnam, got as close to the action as women were allowed to get, and you want me to fade into the background like a good little girl?"

"You're making me sound antifeminist.  You know my stand on that issue."

"I know your political view, and it's admirable.  Your practical view, however, stinks to high heaven."

"I'm not being hypocritical."

"Aren't you?"  A couple of the residents looked up, and I realized my voice had risen on that last retort.

Frank put his hand on my arm and tried to maneuver me in the direction of the door.  "Look," he hissed.  "I appreciate the gesture.  Really.  It's just that–"

"Anything wrong here?" The sound of Hannibal's voice directly behind us made both of us jump.  When I turned to face him, I followed the line of his flinty gaze to the spot on my arm where Frank had been holding me.  The look was almost a physical caress, and I suppressed a shiver.

"No," Frank barked.  "Mo came by to offer to help, but we're okay here."

"Like hell we are," the older man retorted.  "You've been up for at least thirty-six hours, and the staff who are left can't cover this many residents, even without the ones we've sent home to their families temporarily.  We're able to fill in some of the holes–" he cocked his head at Murdock "– but we can't replace your medical staff.  You need her."

"I can handle a rifle, too," I couldn't keep the mischievous comment from escaping.  The corner of Hannibal's mouth twitched upward slightly.

"It's easy for you to put her in the line of fire," growled Frank. "But I won't, I can't ask her to do that for me."

"You're not asking me.  I'm volunteering."  He started to speak again, but I interrupted.  "Don't you see?  I have a chance to be helpful to you.  If you refuse, you're not protecting me.  You're telling me this gift I want to give you means nothing."

Frank stared at me for several seconds, then locked gazes with Hannibal.  "If anything happens to her," he snapped, "I'll kill you."

"You won't have to," Hannibal returned calmly.  "If anything happens to her, I'll already be dead."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Six hours later, I was bustling from one room to the next, making the rounds of the chronic care residents, when I stepped out into the hall without looking and slammed face first into a living mountain of gold.

"Sorry," I murmured, and moved to walk around him.

"I don't like what you doin' to Hannibal," Baracus told me without preamble.

"Yeah," I acknowledged.  "Well, if it helps any, I don't like what I'm doing to him either."

The huge man's brows knit together briefly, then relaxed.  "Look, lady.  You saved my life, and that counts for somethin'.  But even that won't make up for you messin' with our C.O.  It ain't right that we're here helpin' out your boyfriend after what you did."

I folded my arms, faking a confidence I didn't feel.  "And just what did I do, in your opinion?  Or don't you share the locker room rumours with the girls?"

Baracus made a derisive noise.  "You think he told us?  Nah.  Hannibal always plays that stuff close to the vest.  But we know when he ain't himself.  And he ain't himself.  He don't even love bein' on the jazz no more."

"‘On the jazz'?"

"It's what Face calls it when he's plannin' some crazy thing.  The dressin' up, the last minute stunts.  He's gettin' us in and out of missions in one piece, but he ain't lookin' out for himself.  One of these days he'll make a mistake and get caught in the crossfire."

I felt my knees turn to water.  "Don't say that.  God, it's not true, it's not true," I whispered.

"I wish it wasn't," growled the sergeant.

"But I ended it to keep that from happening."  I shook my head.  "He'll get over it.  He has to."  My voice turned pleading, as much to convince myself as him.  "There's no way he could have kept all of you safe with me hanging around.  It wouldn't have worked, and you would have been worse off."

"Can't get much worse if we lose Hannibal," Baracus told me.  "And I got a bad feelin' about this mission.  Somethin' ain't right."

I fought the sensation of great, empty cold that washed over me.  "What isn't right?"

"Don' know yet.  I'll know when it happens," the big man replied infuriatingly.

I concentrated the sound of my own blood pounding in my ears, then heard myself speaking as from a distance.  "Call it off.  Finish it.  It's not too late.  Frank doesn't really want you here anyway."

"Can't do that.  I ain't in command."

"Talk to him, then.  Tell him about your concerns."

But Baracus just looked down at me.  "Ain't no force on this earth gonna get Hannibal to give up on this mission."

"Why?" I breathed.

He smiled in a way that chilled me even further.  "You had more schoolin' than the rest of us put together.  You figure it out."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

It was past ten o'clock and I was rapidly slipping away.  Frank had finally been persuaded to get some rest, and was snoring soundly in one of the abandoned staff rooms.  Sitting alone in the semidarkness of the nurses' lounge, I tried to sort my thoughts into neat little piles while fatigue clawed at me.  The pile marked ‘Frank' was small and clearly defined, but Hannibal's was a hopeless jumble scattered over the terrain of my subconscious.  For six months and more, I had managed to deny the pervasive influence of him, but seeing him again had destroyed that pretense in a heartbeat.  I hadn't recognized it when it came, never having experienced one of those all-consuming romances that blotted out everything that had gone before and maimed everything that would follow.  But I couldn't pretend any longer that I would be able to have a completely fulfilling relationship with Frank or anyone else.

Not that this revelation meant there was any future for Hannibal and me.  The ugly, practical problems still remained; his life was on a path that made it exceedingly dangerous for him to be around me.  I had been right to end it.  And yet the thought of him wounded or killed because of an action of mine was unbearable.   I felt like a swimmer who had ventured too far from shore and was now being pulled further and further out by the current.  Should I use up all my strength in a vain attempt to return to land and drown, or should I take the one in a million chance that the current would take me to a place I hadn't imagined?

God, I was thinking in metaphors.  That had to be a sure sign of insanity.

I must have dozed for a while, because the next sensation I had was of a hand gently shaking me.  My eyes creaked open to reveal the object of my musings, kneeling in front of my chair.  The barrel of the Ruger rifle slung over his shoulder glinted in the half light.

"Hey," he murmured.  "You need to get some sleep.  There's a room down the hall.  Come on."

In my drowsy state, it seemed like another night an eternity ago.  "Hmmm.  What about you?"

"Murdock and I are taking first watch.  We're being relieved at two.  Don't worry about me."

I reached out to touch his face.  He jerked slightly, but didn't pull away.  "Can't help it.  Why couldn't you sell shoes or somethin', huh?"

A small smile escaped him.  "Yeah.  But it'd be a real disappointment to get killed by a falling crate of loafers."  Suddenly the world tilted crazily, then righted itself, and I realized he had picked me up.  I absorbed the warmth of him as he stood, unmoving.

"Hannibal–" I managed.

"Shhh. Just give me a second, Doc."  We breathed together once, twice, and I imagined I felt the pressure of his lips against my hairline.  Then he began to move toward the door.

Less than a minute later, I was alone, deposited on a bed in a darkened room.  As I slipped into unconsciousness, I could hear myself murmuring, "Call me Doc again.  Call me Doc."  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_June 24, 1984_  
_1:00 p.m._  
 

"Did I ever tell you about the time I spent five hours in the water off Southampton?"

"Oh, for gods' sakes, Ben–"

I paused in my progress through the common room to listen in on the lively conversation that was gathering watchers from the neighbouring tables.  Murdock was in the thick of it, his ingenuous grin lighting up the small patch of universe around him.  Hannibal watched from a nearby armchair, his eyes dancing at the banter of the two sparring residents.

"You couldn't have possibly survived the English Channel for five hours," admonished the silver- haired woman to Murdock's left, a steely type who looked as though she could eat bullets and fire them back at top speed.  She seemed ageless, but was probably in her mid to late seventies.

Benedict "Shorty" Jones, about the same age but lanky and long-boned where she was broad, was a gregarious Texan who had tried to get my phone number less than two minutes after he'd been introduced to me yesterday.  The mischief in him was bubbling over, and he made no effort to contain it.  "Well...I suppose it might've only been four."

"Four!" spluttered the woman.

"It was August," he explained to us all, seeking allies.  "The water was warmer ‘n cat p–   I mean, it was unseasonably warm."

"Ben–"

The old man thrust his chin forward and narrowed his eyes.  "Trixie–"

"Stop calling me that!  You know I hate it."

"All right, Beatrice Katherine Ogilvie."  He took on an air of pure devotion.  "I'm just putty in your hands.  Mold me, darlin'."

Beatrice stared at him for a full five seconds, then, unexpectedly, burst out laughing.  "You Yanks always were a randy lot," she chuckled.

"I don't know what you mean.  Now, I remember a Wren in London once, she knew how to tie a  sheep shank–"

"Shorty," Hannibal interrupted, putting out the fire that had begun to blaze again in the older woman's eye, "you were going to tell us more about your time at the other home?"

"Sure," Ben agreed affably, winking at Beatrice.  "What do you want to know?"

"Well, Frank told us you were there about six months."

"Uh hunh.  Worst six months of my life.  And that includes the time in Burma.  Godawful hole."

Murdock waggled his eyebrows at me.  "Ben here was in the Airborne during the Good War."

"We were the fustest with the mostest," he informed me, a devilish smile lighting his features.  An alpha male, indeed.  A little wrinkled around the edges, but the edges were still there, bless him.

"Anyway," Ben continued, "I ended up at Shady Acres after I broke my hip.  My good-for-nothing son dumped me there because he didn't want to be bothered with his old man's upkeep, and when he finally remembered where he parked me, I could barely recall m'own name."

"Ben thinks he might have been drugged," Hannibal told me.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Ben concurred.  "They kept telling me the pain medication was making me disoriented, but I was wounded in ‘43 and not even the morphine did that to me.  When David came, they put up a fuss, saying I wasn't fully recovered, then started griping that I hadn't paid bills I didn't know I had.  He had to pony up, then sign a waiver releasing them from any responsibility if I had a relapse.  I think they were afraid that junk they'd been putting in me might put out my lights permanently, and they were trying to cover their a– heinies."

"And then there's fair Beatrice's story," chimed in Murdock.

"I was at another residence, Green Meadows," she said, her face turning sour.  "Horrid name for a horrid place.  It could best be described as seedy, but that was before this was built and it was all that was available when I moved down to be near my daughter.  It wasn't long before I was afraid to tell her about what was going on there."  She looked annoyed at her own weakness, and I felt an immediate kinship with this iron lady.

"Face went down to the Better Business Bureau yesterday and did some checking around," Hannibal explained.  "Green Meadows and Shady Acres are both owned by the same lowlife, a guy named Forrest McAndrew.  They've been around for about five years, and new ones are due to be built in the Valley this fall and San Francisco in early ‘85."

"They're growing like fungus," Murdock added.

Hannibal gestured with his cigar.  "He advertises specifically to vets, and when he gets his hooks into them, through threats or overmedication, he gets them to sign over their power of attorney."

"What is he after?" I asked, disgusted.

"Ultimately, our pension benefits," Beatrice ventured.  "They let me leave Green Meadows after they found out that getting ahold of mine would be more trouble than it was worth.  I was with the WRCNS during the war, you see, and the Canadian government has much more red tape than the American one."

"Lucky for you," Murdock smiled.

"You boys think this fella's behind the trouble here?" Ben inquired.

Hannibal nodded.  "Frank has a hunch, and we've been following up on it.  There's no other competition for the Anaheim site; the land was up for sale for months and nobody wanted it, so we don't think that's the connection.  It makes sense this McAndrew guy would want to get rid of this place before it expands, especially since Frank's residence is priced competitively with his ratholes and is starting to attract some people who've managed to escape his grip."

"Colonel Smith believes we might have grounds for a court case," beamed Beatrice.

"But not until we've taken some of the fight out of Mister McAndrew." Hannibal grinned at her, and before my eyes, the tough old biddy lit up like a Roman candle.  Did he have this incendiary effect on every female who ventured too close to his sphere of influence, I wondered?

I didn't have long to ponder that, because Peck walked in at that moment.  His normally natty attire had been replaced with dingy blue coveralls, and he looked to be in some sort of psychic pain.

"What's the story?" Hannibal demanded.

"You want this right now, huh?"  Peck returned unhappily.  As he drew closer, I noticed a strong chemical smell coming off of him.  "I'd love to get out of these things ASAP."

"Oh, Face Man, don't be so gauche," Murdock lisped, flipping a wrist.  "This is the hottest new look on the Milan runways, sweetheart.  Exterminator chic."

Peck cast a jaundiced eye in his direction.  "Well, it's definite that they're doing something to the residents.  They all seemed scared as rabbits or stoned to the eyeballs."  He flopped down into a chair beside his C.O.

"Did you get to the medical records?"

"There weren't a lot of records that I could see; they're covering their tracks pretty well.  But they took the cockroach threat very seriously after Murdock loosed that horde in their kitchen this morning.  I was able to fumigate the hell out of the place, and they made themselves scarce."  He dug in the pocket of the coveralls.  "I wrote down some of the names of the drugs from the bottles I found in the pharmacy."  He passed them to Hannibal, who passed them to me.

I scanned the list, feeling a wave of nausea hit me.  "Where could they be getting these?  Some of this stuff isn't much more refined than horse tranquilizers."

"Mexico, maybe.  The drug laws aren't as strict there.  They could get ‘em cheap, too," Murdock offered.

"How many bottles did you find?" Hannibal asked.

"Enough to knock out most of L.A. for a day," drawled the younger man.

"Wonderful," their commander muttered.  "We've got an indefensible position here, and no way to get the residents of the other homes out of the line of fire quickly if we decide to take it to them.  Unless we figure out a way to shut down their drugstore for a couple of days."

Murdock raised his head.  "Here comes the big guy."

Baracus strode over to us.  "Man, that place is easy enough to get into, but it's not gonna be easy to take care of business with all them innocent people around."   He folded his arms when he saw me, but made no other comment.  "I gotta go check and see if those bugs Face planted are workin'.  I'll have a map of the exterior in about an hour."

"Good.  Face, go ahead and get changed, then help him with the inside layout."

Peck sprang to his feet.  "Thank God," he breathed.

After the Lieutenant had departed, Murdock spun toward Hannibal.  "Colonel, I have a plan," he announced.

"I'm all ears, Captain."

"You need to get into Shady Acres again."

Hannibal nodded, his face serious.  "That does seem to be the command centre, yes."

"You need a diversion so that someone can neutralize the pharmacy, and a way to alert the residents to our intentions."

A twinkle appeared in the blue eyes, nearly imperceptible.  "That's correct."

"I think the veterans are due for a USO show, sir."

"And did you have a particular entertainer in mind?"

"I did.  But I will have need of–a piano player."

"Well, that presents a problem, as none of us plays the piano."  He raised his eyebrows at Ben and Beatrice.  "Anyone?"  They both shook their heads sadly.

"Umm..." I heard myself make a small sound, and the four of them turned as one toward me.  I raised my hand slowly.  "I'll probably regret this, won't I?"

Murdock's grin reached for his ears.  "Without a doubt, dahling."  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_June 24, 1984_  
_7:00 p.m._  
 

I sat in a padded chair in the back of a van, trying to read yellowed sheet music in the dim light, and wondered if I'd lost what remained of my marbles.

It didn't help that I was made up like some sort of German expressionist's idea of a woman in drag.  The wig itched terribly, and I fought the urge to rip it off my head.  "Murdock," I sighed, squinting at the tiny lines of notes, "I don't know if I can play this kind of music."

"But of course you can, liebchen.  Confidence is the ultimate weapon."

"Can't I just borrow the M-60 instead?" I cracked.  "I've never done cabaret before."

"It is all in the wrists.  When I was in München, I knew a sculptor; he had the wrists of Zeus himself, did I tell you?"

"Shut up, fool!" yelled Baracus from the driver's seat.

"Leave him alone, B.A.," admonished Hannibal.  "He's getting into the part."

"You would have thought dipping him in the tub of Nair would have done that already," quipped Peck, squatting behind us and polishing his sidearm.  "Are you sure this is a good idea?  I don't like that only you and Murdock are going in."

"Confidence is the ultimate weapon, Face," Hannibal grinned, chewing on a cigar.

"Great.  Now I know how my epitath will read."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

Earlier that afternoon, Murdock had dragged me all over hell and creation in Peck's Corvette, seeking out the dusty gold hidden away in second hand and nostalgia shops. L.A. was overflowing with the castoffs of faded movie gods and goddesses, and if you knew where to look you could find the false eyelashes Jean Harlow's stand-in wore in Platinum Blonde or a stair tread from Tara, once stepped upon by a mustachioed Gable schlepping a hundred and ten pounds of Vivien Leigh.

"This is the look," Murdock declared, holding up a suit triumphantly.  The loud lapels screamed Lawrence Welk.

"Are you sure?" I hedged, casting about frantically for something more fitting.  A dark rack over in one corner caught my eye, and I made a beeline for it.  Diving in, I dug about for something in a 30 or 32; no sense in having it fall completely off me, and in a boy's cut the hips would be narrow enough.  "Here," I called out.  "Come and see what you think of this."

Murdock reluctantly joined me, perhaps a little wounded I hadn't approved his choice.  But when he saw mine, he clapped his hands together and produced a voice I didn't immediately recognize.  Whoever he was, he was incapable of pronouncing his ‘r's.   "Dahling, it is scwumptious, simply scwumptious.  Wunderbar."

"The tails are a bit much, aren't they?"

"Nein, nein.  You will be puhhhhfect."  The last word had a musical lilt to it and lasted a full five seconds.

"Eartha Kitt!"  I cried.

He stuck out his lower lip and shook his head.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

"Help.  It's the hairpiece that ate New York!"

I was consumed by uncharacteristically girlish giggles as I flopped the pageboy wig on my head, twisting it this way and that in an effort to make it look like my natural hair.  Nothing doing; no matter which way it went, it resembled a deflated Pekinese that had chosen to expire on top of me.  In the background, old jazz standards played on the eight-track in the corner, another junk shop find.  I pictured smoky clubs and torch singers who drank themselves to an early grave, driven to alcoholic self-immolation by the damned depressing songs they sang.  In the air before me, my hands mimicked the flourishes and mellifluous riffs of their accompanists.

Frank had come and gone, and was now no doubt off pouting somewhere.  A small part of me felt guilty for putting him through this worry, first by insisting I stay and now insisting I go on this foray into the lion's den.  He had attempted to come along, but had been vetoed by Hannibal, who reminded Frank that not all of his own people would be inserting into Shady Acres, and if he wasn't planning to bring them along he certainly wasn't about to add another civilian to the mix.  The implication being, of course, that I would be more than enough trouble.

I didn't doubt it.  I was feeling giddy, foolish and completely unlike myself.

But I was also having more fun than I could remember in years.

I heard a moan from the bathroom next door, and called out, "Murdock!  Are you still alive in there?"

"I think I clogged the drain.  The water's backing up."

"Don't expect me to come to your rescue," I shouted, tamping down the mental image of a six- inch layer of body hair lining the interior of the tub.  "I've got my own problems!"  I turned back to the mirror and started violently at the image of Hannibal standing behind me.  He truly did have the manners of a cat, I mused.  Or at least the walk of one.

"Need a hand?" he asked, his tone casual.

"I suppose so," I breezed.  It was difficult to feign nonchalance while wearing a dead lap dog.

"I've got some experience in these matters," he offered, indicating the wig.

"Sure.  Knock yourself out," I managed.  Needing no further prompting, he dug his fingers into my scalp.  The raw sensation of it nearly took my breath away, bringing a floodtide of very different memories.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No," I breathed, closing my eyes, shameless.  "It's–fine."

"You've got it on backwards." I felt his breath near my ear.

"Mmm-hmm," I purred, resisting the desire to lean back into him.  "I'm not surprised."

"Sure you want to do this?"

My eyes snapped open at that.  "Not you too," I accused, meeting his reflected gaze.

"There's been a complication.  One of the bugs Face planted isn't working.  I'm going to have to get into McAndrew's office while you two are playing."

My gut knotted.  "That's a change from the original plan, isn't it?"

"We don't have a choice.  The one in the office is the most likely to pick up an incriminating conversation.  We can't afford to lose it."

"And what if it's not working because McAndrew found it and is now waiting for you to make your next move?"

He nodded once.  "That had occurred to me.  Which is why I want to make you aware of just how dangerous this could be."

I held his gaze in the mirror, then turned to face him.  "I want to do anything I can to help," I told him.  I want to do anything to help you, I amended silently, but I was immediately struck by doubt.  Would I be a liability to him, distract him when he needed to be focusing on the mission?  Oh God, now what?

"Frank is one lucky man," he murmured, misconstruing my statement.

"Hannibal, that's not–"

In a demonstration of perfectly lousy timing, the door to the bathroom flew open.  "I am cleansed!"  shouted Murdock, his lower regions now wrapped demurely in a large pink towel.  The normally hirsute pilot's legs, arms, chest and shoulders were shorn closer than a sheep after a nasty bout with the electric clippers.

"Captain," Hannibal told him, "the men appreciate your sacrifice."

Murdock snapped off a smart salute, then did a crisp about face and retreated back into the bathroom.  As it closed, the door caught the pink towel and he let out a small yelp as a furry rear end made a brief appearance.

Hannibal smiled at the now closed door.  "I'm glad he didn't go overboard.  Would've been pretty itchy when it started to grow back in."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As I sat down at the piano and arranged my sheet music, I marvelled at the torrential storm of bullshit that had just now gained us entry into Shady Acres.  It had taken no more than about two minutes, I believed, although time had slowed to molasses consistency as we walked up to the front door, Hannibal in his seersucker three-piece, me in my Depression-era bar mitzvah castoff, and Murdock in a glittering white evening dress and fake boobs.  I felt like we were refugees from the world's worst Hallowe'en party.  Add to this the fact that some of the people on the other side of the door would like nothing better than to hand us our internal organs if they knew what we were up to and I had to lock my knees to keep them from knocking together.

More frightening than even this, however, was the realization that I was enjoying the adrenaline rush.  Again.

Who was this woman?  She reminded me of someone, but it was a dim memory, not easily recalled.  I would have to look in a mirror soon.  No, scratch that.  The magic Hannibal had performed with makeup and ersatz hair made me look like the uglier half of Viktor und Viktoria. A mirror wouldn't be helpful right now.

I cast a glance about the room, which was starting to fill with golden agers, all of them hastily gathered to see the show.  It was a stroke of genius for Hannibal to sell this as a "benefit" concert, for something told me the pond scum running this establishment hadn't sprung for anything resembling entertainment for these poor people since the place opened.  Free is good, as my dad used to say.  Especially when you're trying to smuggle in a host of soldiers in the belly of a wooden horse.

Actually, I mused, a host of soldiers would be welcome about now, but unfortunately the only secret weapon we had on hand was Murdock in a clingy gown.  He was in hiding awaiting a grand introduction by his "manager", who was now preparing the stage.  Putting the mike in place on its stand, Hannibal looked up and caught me watching him.  He shot me a wink, then gave it a tap and raised his hands for quiet.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, and a hush fell.  He nodded at me; I poised my fingers over the keys, took a deep breath, then plunged into the pre-arranged intro.   "I am pleased to present to you tonight a great entertainer, a personal friend of mine, recently returned from her sold-out European tour, the one, the only.......Gretchen Gesundheit!"

A hand emerged from the kitchen door, its fingers studded with rhinestones that would choke an elephant.  Following behind the hand was Murdock, who slunk from hiding like a Siamese cat, his dress glittering in the bright lights trained on the makeshift stage.  I was astounded at the transformation as polite but sparse applause advanced toward us, then retreated.

When he reached the mike, he blew a kiss to Hannibal, his shoulder-length golden tresses shimmering.  Turning to the audience, he treated them to a grin that was innocent and carnal at once.

"Hello, you wunnnderful people.  We shall have us some fun tonight, nein?"  Taking the mike off the stand, he turned his smile at me.  "Liebchen, I think I wish to begin with some Cole Porter.  He was such a funny little man."  I nodded, then launched into the opening bars of the song I hoped he wanted.

"Slower, dahling, we do not want to win the Indy five hundred just yet."  A chorus of titters arose from the audience, and I chuckled in spite of myself, obediently slowing the tempo.

"Ah, yes.  I remember a studio apartment under the eaves in Montmartre–but that is a story for later."  He caught the eye of a woman in the audience and smiled secretly.  "Much later."  Taking a breath, his voice took on a quality that was strangely familiar:

"You do something to me  
Something that simply mystifies me  
Tell me, why should it be  
You have the power to hypnotize me  
Let me live ‘neath your spell  
Do do that voodoo that you do so well  
Oh, you do something to me  
That nobody else could do–"

It wasn't quite singing, really a nether region between singing and speaking.  His voice was feminine, and yet masculine at the same time, not due to any flaw in his performance, but to the fact that it was right for it to be so, all throaty and mixed up.  I remembered a night in the mid- Fifties I hadn't thought about in decades, when as a teenager falling in lust with rock ‘n' roll, I was reluctantly dragged to a concert by my Aunt Tillie.  She was a truly bizarre, amazing woman, a onetime flapper who loved anything and everything Hollywood.  On the stage, she assured me, I would see a person who had more charisma than ten Elvises, and more talent than a hundred Buddy Hollys.  I had been determined not to let my jaded adolescent soul admit the grown-ups knew anything, so I had feigned boredom, and earned Tillie's consternation and scorn.  But privately I acknowledged that I had been in the presence of a giant that night.  Murdock wasn't exactly a giant, but he was the closest I had come to it in thirty years, so I soaked up his technicolour shenanigans and dreamed of climbing beanstalks as my fingers loved the ivory.

Half an hour later, Murdock had them in the palm of his well-manicured hand.  As soon as we had started up "Lilli Marlene", possibly the biggest hit of World War II,  the vets had begun singing along and hadn't stopped yet.  Now he waded into the crowd, putting the mike to one side as he whispered sweet nothings into the ears of men and women alike.  I watched as comprehension dawned on each wrinkled face in turn, and realized he was telling them of our plans, or perhaps just murmuring reassurances.  He truly did have a heart of gold, I reflected, and absently wondered what had happened to the woman I'd met at the VA last fall.  Her courage wouldn't have been tested in the same way, for he was not a fugitive, but it would still have been battered over and over again.  Had she stood up to the pounding, or had she folded like a house of cards at the sight of the first bruise or flesh wound?  She seemed too fragile a thing to last for long, but then I seemed as tough as old shoe leather.  Appearances could be deceiving.

Uproarious applause struck me, and I belatedly noticed we had come to the end of another song, my fingers stopping on some unconscious command from my otherwise occupied brain.  Murdock beamed at the crowd, then spoke when the clapping died.  "And now, I would like to sing for you a song from one of my favourite films. It was many years ago, and I know that this will bring back many memories for all of us."  He mouthed "Illusions" at me and I scrambled for the score.

"Want to buy some illusions  
Slightly used, second hand  
They were lovely illusions  
Reaching high, built on sand..."

He wove from table to table, undulating with the music, and I poured all my energy into the song, infusing it with as much drama and angst as I could muster.  Focusing on the mood of the piece helped to distract me from thoughts of Hannibal, who had quietly slipped from the room shortly after it started.

"Want to buy some illusions  
Slightly used, just like new  
Such romantic illusions  
And they're all about you..."

As I rolled through the bridge, I felt time slow again and forced myself to keep up the tempo.  What was he doing now?  How long had he been gone?  Between grandiose gestures and kisses for the audience, Murdock shot me a glance.  Our eyes met, and I read his unspoken message: keep your head.  I nodded and managed a thin smile to show my understanding.

"I'll sell them all for a penny  
They make pretty souvenirs  
Take my lovely illusions  
Some for laughs, some for tears."

The last notes died away, and I practiced breathing.  I could do this, I told myself.  Nothing to it.

We made it halfway through the next song before all hell broke loose.  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_June 24, 1984_  
_7:45 p.m._  
 

My heart stopped at the sound of a loud crash and a chorus of shouts from the main hall.  Fingers stumbling on the keys, I ground to a halt as Murdock made a chopping motion with his hand.

"Who dares to interrupt my performance?" he demanded haughtily.

He knew the answer to that.  Why wasn't he springing into action?  I knew he had a small Beretta concealed in one of his voluminous sleeves.  I was unarmed, and cursing myself for it.  I should have asked for a weapon.  I knew how to handle one...

The curtains at the end of the room parted to reveal two goons bookending Hannibal, who stumbled on unsteady legs between them.  His hair was askew and his eyes were half-closed.  Dear God.

"Mister McAndrew!" shouted the left hand goon.  "We found this guy in your office!"

A tall, lanky man unfolded himself from a front row seat.  I had met him briefly earlier, and had tried not to make much direct eye contact, but I studied him now.  He had the appearance of an ordinary, good-natured businessman, but his hawk nose and cold gray gaze threw his genial image slightly off-kilter, as though he had assumed a mask that didn't quite fit.  "I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation, David," McAndrew drawled, unwilling to drop the mask just yet.

"I would like to say a word in my fedense," Hannibal slurred, and for the first time I noticed a small bottle in his hand.  The amber liquid sloshed as he punctuated his statements with gestures.  "I am not a crook."

"Tell it to Watergate," sneered right hand goon.

"Let him speak," boomed McAndrew.

"Thank you," smiled Hannibal, bowing slightly, then shaking off his captors.  He tottered forward for a couple of steps, then righted himself again.

It's an act, my brain screamed.  It's all an act.  He's not hurt, he's not–

"I was, ah, invited to join an elegant lady for a nightcap in her apartments," Hannibal continued, nodding at the audience as he came down the centre aisle.  "I thought I had memorized the directions she had given me, but I was obviously in err– in err– mishtaken."

"What was the lady's name?"

He took an unsteady step backward.  "Why, sir, you are no gentleman!"

"Probably Lottie," volunteered someone from the audience.

"I'm right behind you, you old battleaxe!" another woman, presumably Lottie, screeched, giving her accuser a smack on the back of the head for emphasis.

"Pleashe, ladies, pleashe, you'll have to wait your turn."

"All right!" shouted McAndrew.  When silence reigned again, he turned to his henchmen.  "Anything out of place?"

"We heard some banging and clunking in there, that's why we went in.  Your lamp and a couple of other things had been knocked off your desk–"

"It was dark," whined Hannibal.

"–but that was it," concluded the goon, shooting him a venomous look for the interruption.

McAndrew just stood, watching Hannibal as he swayed.  I chanced a glance at Murdock, who outwardly betrayed no signs of tension.  His arms were folded, his right hand at his elbow.  A small movement and he would be holding the Beretta.

"Well, Miss Gesundheit," he finally said, turning toward Murdock, "it appears as though your performance was a great success.  We appreciate your coming to visit us.  Don't we, everyone?"  He cast a baleful eye at the audience, who responded to the command by clapping timorously.  I shuddered with rage at the veiled menace in his voice.  How dare he treat these people in this way?  I had seen my share of nasty characters, particularly in Vietnam, but I couldn't understand the total lack of conscience that permitted a person to abuse others without remorse.  It was our duty to do whatever we could to stop him.

My heart raced.  We?  At what point had I elected myself a part of this?  This was powerful juju I was messing with; given the chance and enough firepower, who wouldn't want to play Robin Hood?  For the first time, I truly began to understand what drove Hannibal and his team.

But this was no time for reflection.  The two men pulled me along as they strode toward the back entrance, beating a hasty retreat before McAndrew changed his mind.  Once outside, we walked calmly to the front gates, where the van was waiting.  When the side door shut and the vehicle started to move, I closed my eyes for a few seconds, sending a silent ‘thank you' skyward.

"Face, what's the good word?" asked Hannibal, swivelling his chair around.

"It's done.  Within a couple of hours, that room should be one big puddle."

"The meds?" I demanded.

"Completely ruined," Hannibal told me.  "Thanks to a generous quantity of battery acid we smuggled in in one of the cases of audio equipment."

"But how did Face get in?" I queried, my head spinning.  I hadn't been privy to the intricacies of the Plan. From my understanding, there hadn't been much point in knowing, for it was a fluid thing, changing at the last minute, then changing again.

"Any place is easy enough to get into if you've got a good diversion," Face ventured, smiling at his C.O.

I stared at him for a moment, my adrenaline-soaked brain trying to assimilate and process information.  Then the light dawned, and I turned back to Hannibal.  "You intended to get caught all along."

He pulled out a cigar and lit it.  "Yup."

"But won't they turn that office upside down once they discover the meds have been destroyed?"

"Sure.  But they'll find the wrong bug.  The one that isn't working."  He took a drag and exhaled out the window.  "I left it under the phone."

"Where every piker leaves it," supplied Murdock.

"And where every idiot looks for it," added Hannibal.  "The one that's working, they won't find so easily."

I sighed.  "I won't even ask."

"Best you don't.  Trade secret."  Mischievous blue eyes danced in the light of the dying sun, and my heart scurried around in my chest, looking for cover.  But there was none to be had.

There was no longer any doubt in my mind that Frank and I would have to have a serious talk once this was all over.  Frank was perfect;  good, and kind, and funny, and sweet, and successful, and above all else, normal.

Trouble is, I told myself as I sat there, my grin spreading to match Hannibal's, you're so far from normal it would take a hundred years to get there.  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_June 25, 1984_  
 

The next morning, after a restless night counting ceiling tiles, I made my rounds, downed two and a half cups of coffee, and called Abby.

"So how are Frank and the silver fox getting along?"

I cringed at the nickname Dora had given Hannibal, one that had made him laugh uproariously when she first used it in front of him.  "Like the proverbial house afire," I observed sarcastically.  "What did you think?"

"I thought they would, actually, considering that Frank is pretty much Hannibal with training wheels."

I swallowed just in time to avoid spitting hot coffee all over the carpet.  Spluttering, I managed, "Wh-what is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean," Abby explained drily, "that you went looking for a safer version, and you found it."

"They're nothing alike."

"Too true, my lass," sighed Abby.  "Oh, speaking of the devil, guess who popped by the clinic Friday?  Rod Decker."

My blood chilled.  "What did he want?"

"I'm not sure.  What he got was hammered.  Dora and I took him out and it was like an old episode of Time Tunnel.  The quart of tequila was a big help."  I could hear her grinning at the other end of the line.  "He still can't hold his booze."

"Did he mention me?"

"Once, when we were down to the worm.  He babbled something about ‘the trail going cold again'."

Again? I mused.  Exactly how many of Hannibal's conquests had this weasel shadowed at one time or another?  "Maybe he was only saying that to throw us off," I suggested.

"Believe me, he was in no condition to be that clever."

"It just seems like too much of a coincidence."  My stomach lurched.  "Do you suppose he could have had the clinic's line tapped?"  God, what if he were tracing this call right now?  What if I were turning completely paranoid in my old age?

Abby apparently concurred.  "After all this time?  Why would he think you'd still have any connection to Hannibal?"

"Even if I do?"

"You said it, not me, sugar lips."  I could think of nothing clever to say, so we listened to each other breathe for a few seconds.

"What's happened?" she asked finally.

I shook my head.  "Nothing.  Everything.  I'm not who I thought I was, Abby.  Not what I hoped I could be, anyway."

"Jesus, I knew that from the minute you buried your ass in Bad Rock.  You were the wildest one of us all, don't you remember?"

I pinched my nose between forefinger and thumb, suddenly feeling a headache coming on.  "No.  And even if I did, that was a thousand lifetimes ago."

"You can't change who you are.  I ought to know.  Lie about who you really are and you end up hurting yourself and everyone who comes in contact with you.  Ask my ex-husband."  I heard her draw a shaky breath. "Ask my daughter."

"Abby–"

"No.  Forget it.  Listen.  If you want to play it safe, that's fine.  Find the deepest foxhole you can find and jump in.  But you can't drag Frank in with you and expect either of you to be happy, not when it's plain as day you're still in love with Hannibal."

There was a beat while I absorbed the pounding.  "Are you done?"

"I think so."

"Because I figured that out already."

"When?"

"About four-thirty this morning.  Did you know my room has two hundred and sixty eight individual ceiling tiles?"

"When are you going to tell him?"

"Tell who what?  Tell Hannibal I love him?  Never.  Tell Frank it  isn't going to work?  As soon as this is all over."

I started at a quiet voice behind me.  "Something tells me you won't have to wait that long."

Oh, hell.  "Abby, I have to go.  The ceiling just fell in."

I hung up the receiver over my friend's protests and stood, turning to confront the source of the voice.

"If it helps any," he told me calmly, "you didn't say anything that was a big surprise."

The guilt tried to drown me.  "It's so like you to think of someone else's feelings."

"Well," Frank began, attempting a laugh that didn't reach his eyes, "concentrating on my feelings right now isn't going to be all that productive.  I'm a man; I'll take them out on a defenseless piece of wood later."  He breathed.  "You were involved with him."  It wasn't a question.

I nodded once.  "It was over before I met you.  At least I thought it was."

"Did he end it?"

"No.  I did."

"And now?"  His hands fisted briefly, then relaxed.  "Has he been trying–"

"He hasn't been trying anything," I sighed.  "He just–is.  I'd forgotten how–no, that's a lie.  Oh, hell."  I shook my head.  "Believe it or not, I wanted more than anything to put this behind me.  I thought I could."

"Mo, I can't compete with G.I. Joe.  You knew that going in.  I'm no larger-than-life hero in a flak jacket."

"No, you're a different kind of hero.  The kind that gets up every day and cares about the world, and does something to change the way it works.  That's why I wanted to be with you.  That's why I thought–" I cut myself off, realizing what I had been about to say.

So did Frank.  "That you could fall in love with me?"

I fought the urge to flinch, determined that he would have honesty from me.  Meeting his gaze, I told him, "If I'd met you first, I would have."

He absorbed this for a few moments, then nodded.  "That's a consolation, of a sort."  He attempted a small smile.  "Listen, I know you didn't want to do this now, but you don't have to worry about me going off the deep end.  I'm not going to challenge him to a duel or insist they pack up and leave.  The most annoying thing about all of this is that although I will never like the way they operate, I like them.  McAndrew would have paid them a lot more than I ever could, so they're not just in this for the money. In their own way, I suppose they're showing they care about the way this world works, too." Stepping closer to me, he brought his fingers to his lips, then transferred the kiss to my temple with a feather-light touch.

"I heard what you said about Hannibal," he told me softly, "and I hope you reconsider telling him.  Somehow, the idea that I'm losing you to the memory of a man rather than the man himself is harder to take."  He brushed back a lock of my hair, then let his hand drop.  "Whatever you do, I hope you find what you're looking for, Mo."

I stood for long minutes after he had gone, savouring the numbness that had descended on me like a warm, familiar blanket.  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_June 27, 1984_  
 

It didn't take long for gaping cracks to appear in the foundation of McAndrew's little empire.  The destruction of his drug supply had wreaked havoc at Shady Acres; heated conversations picked up by the bugs indicated residents were leaving in droves.  Yesterday, a shipment planned to restock the home's pharmacy had been intercepted by Murdock and Baracus, who saw to it that it never reached its destination.  Now Green Meadows was also running low on drugs.

Hannibal's lieutenant had been doing his part to contribute to the exodus as well.  While playing the exterminator, Peck had photographed a long list of names and Social Security numbers in McAndrew's office, and since then had been busy hunting up records and tracking down relatives.  Many of the residents of both homes who were unable to get out on their own had been rescued by concerned children horrified to learn of the conditions endured by their parents.

It was more than enough to make a normal person a little suspicious, but in McAndrew it bred a raging paranoia.  The raid on the drug shipment had been the final straw, proof that inside information was being obtained somehow.  And then this morning everything had gone silent.

"He doesn't know where the bugs are, but he knows they're there."  Hannibal chewed on the end of an unlit cigar as he spoke.

"Have we got enough recorded to make a case against him?" Beatrice asked.  Beside her, Shorty looked on with interest.  Since the Team had arrived at the home a few days ago, I had watched the two old vets become more animated and energetic.  It was as though they were reliving old battles, and loving every minute of it.

"We've got some evidence, but nothing some high-priced lawyer couldn't weasel him out of," Hannibal answered.  "And now that he knows he's probably under surveillance, we're not likely to get anything more incriminating than what we've got already."

"Now what do we do?" Ben offered, and I smiled slightly at the use of the ‘we'.

"It's interesting you should ask that, Shorty," Hannibal grinned.  "Because it just so happens I have this plan..."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

"Murdock said you wanted to talk to me?" Hannibal demanded without preamble as he strode into the nurses' lounge.  It was clear he had some inkling of what I was going to say.

I forced my chin up when it threatened to dive for my chest.  "First of all, I know that it's not my place to question your decisions."

He smiled thinly.  "Like I've said before, Doc, everyone's entitled to their opinion."

"Thank you," I breathed, then plunged ahead, determined he wouldn't derail me.  "I wanted you to know I'm concerned about your decision to involve Ben and Beatrice in this."

"They're adults.  They voted to do it."

"They're well into their seventies."

"Yeah?  And I'm fifty-three.  None of us is dead.  Yet."

"That's what I'm talking about, Hannibal.  You live from moment to moment, and if you die tomorrow, that's not a big concern for you. I've watched you in dangerous situations, and you simply don't have the same instinct for self-preservation that most human beings are hard-wired to have.  But you can't expect these people to be comfortable with that degree of risk."

"I expect them to be comfortable with it because they are," Hannibal growled.  "I didn't pick them on a whim.  They're cut from the same cloth as the rest of us."  He took a step toward me, closing the distance.  "The same as you."

I merely stared at him, dumbstruck, while he took another step forward.

"This isn't about them," he murmured.   "This is about you, Doc, and you know it.  You're mad at me because I made you remember what it was like. How it felt to live not knowing what was around the corner.  I saw the fire in your eyes less than three days ago.  Don't try to deny it."

Unreasoning panic welled up in me, as though I had been suddenly laid bare on an operating table with no knowledge of the procedure about to be performed.  "What does it matter how I–"

"It matters because I'm tired of pretending it didn't matter that you left."  He advanced one more step, and then we were almost toe to toe.  "I'm tired of waiting for you to admit you love me, never mind who you may be kidding yourself with."  He reached out and cupped my jaw, the pad of his thumb sliding over my mouth.  "I'm tired of trying to find that fire somewhere else–" he inclined his head forward, gaze boring into mine– "knowing damn well I can only find it here."

And then, as if in replay of the first time, he hauled me into his arms like a rag doll and kissed me.  I didn't fight him this time, but I didn't reciprocate, either.

"Tell me," I ground out when he finally broke off the attack, "do you see everything and everyone as an objective to be taken?"

He still held me loosely, and the Cheshire grin made an appearance.  "Well, you don't respond well to flanking maneuvers, so I decided to try a frontal assault."  He planted a gentle kiss on my forehead, the tip of my nose, my chin, then brushed his lips maddeningly against mine until they tingled.  "I'm gonna write a campaign memoir when we're as old as Shorty and Beatrice."

"We should live so long," I muttered.  "Hannibal–" The name turned into a moan as the tip of his tongue traced the seam of my mouth.  Entirely without my consent, my lips parted to allow him access, and he plunged in.  There had to be a cell of fifth columnists hiding inside me, undermining my will to fight.  Spies were everywhere.

When I returned to myself, I was breathless, warm from head to toe, and thoroughly kissed.  Wrapping my arms around his neck for balance, I buried my face in his chest.  "I can't do this," I sighed.  "God, how I want to.  But I can't."

"I know.  It's not the right time.  When this is over, you can talk to Frank–"

"No," I interrupted, raising my head, "I did talk to him.  Or rather, he talked to me."

"Then what's the problem?"

"The problem is the same one we had in November.  I won't be your Delilah.  I won't put you and your men at risk because I want to be with you."

He stared at me for a moment, then shook his head.  "You sound exactly like Frank."  At my puzzled frown, he added, "You got all hot and bothered when he tried to protect you by telling you to leave, and now you're doing the same thing.  But you know something?  That kind of ‘protection' is always about saving your own skin."

His hands gradually released me, and I felt chilled by the loss.  "You've convinced yourself you're being all noble by sacrificing what we have so that I don't risk getting caught.  Well, guess what?  I risk getting caught going to the corner store.  It's an added risk to be with you, sure, but it won't break the bank.  And it won't endanger my Team any more than they are every other day of the week.  What scares you, Doc, is that you're the one taking the risk.  You're afraid to feel this much again."

I stood there, limp, a wrung-out dishrag.  "Believe me," I told him slowly, "I've been feeling so much since I met you, it's just about fried every one of my nerve endings."

"You're not even close to being fried.  You've got as much guts, and more heart, than anyone I've ever met, but you're determined you're not going to use them."  He reached up to take my shoulders between his hands.  "I don't know if it was one thing that happened to you in country or a thousand little things.  God knows you must have seen enough to convince you that shutting down was the only way to survive.  But just surviving isn't living, Doc."  He leaned forward and kissed me briefly, with such tenderness I wanted to crawl inside him and never come out.  "I hope you figure that out for yourself someday.  But don't take too long, huh?  I'm never sure where I'm gonna be."  
   
   
  

  
 

_June 28, 1984_  
 

"I'm coming with you."

Hannibal met my gaze in the mirror.  He was half made up, already nearly unrecognizable under several pieces of flesh-toned latex.

"Listen.  You need all the hands you can to get those people out safely.  More importantly, you need a doctor with you.  I know the kinds of medications these people have been taking and I know what they need."  He opened his mouth to speak, but I forestalled him with a raised hand.  "I know what you're going to say.  But I have ID, just like the rest of you."  I held up the fake documents Peck had given me this morning.  "Please don't blame Face.  I told him you had approved it."

He turned back to his task of gluing on another false wattle with spirit gum.  "So you're just like the rest of us now, huh?"

I pursed my lips.  "I'm working on that part."

He smiled, then indicated the chair next to his.  "Make yourself comfortable.  I'll help you get made up as soon as I'm done."

As I sat down, he tossed out, "And I was going to tell you not to worry about Face.  He did okay it with me first."

I folded my arms in exasperation.  "Is there anything you haven't already got figured out before I even get here?"

The intensity of his eyes was not dimmed by the reflection.  "Oh yeah, Doc.  Lots of things."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

Two hours later, Hannibal and I stood inside the room we had been assigned in Shady Acres.  While he set about unpacking some of his little "surprises" for use later on that night, I took in the dingy walls and faded upholstery and suppressed a shudder.  Was this the preview for my own future?

If it was, there was one perk; I could imagine growing old with Hannibal beside me.  I'd always tried to keep thoughts of my golden years at bay, since they would probably be spent alone, much as the rest of my adult life had been.  When regrets had surfaced now and again, I'd told myself it was better this way, that it was what I really wanted.  But standing here, breathing the same air with him, sharing the same moments in time, and feeling his presence filling up the empty spaces in me, I wondered how I had ever been able to convince myself of such utter and complete nonsense.

Taking a deep breath, I turned toward my own suitcase, where a small storehouse of medical supplies had been cleverly stashed in a false bottom.  "Do you think Ben and Beatrice are OK?"  I asked softly.  The two had arrived earlier that morning and been processed in separately.  Both had been given false identities and had their appearances altered slightly so that they wouldn't be recognized by staff members who might know them.

"We'll know when I go down to supper," he answered, still inspecting his supplies.  "I arranged to meet them at six-thirty."

"And until then?"

"Until I get back, you've got a headache."  At my expression, he spread his hands.  "There's no security for this stuff.  I wouldn't put it past some of the goons in this place to go through the suitcases for valuables if we were both to leave the room."

I was sure steam was coming out of my ears.  "It's like the damned closet all over again."

He tried to suppress a smile, but wasn't entirely successful.  "Don't worry, I'll give you a chance to do a little reconnaissance later.  I need you to get a feel for the conditions of the remaining residents, and to tell me how quickly we can get them moving."

I hadn't finished pouting.  "Good to know I have some uses," I grumbled.

"More than you can count, Doc." He leaned in for a quick kiss, then was out the door.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When I finally had the chance to roam free, I swiftly hooked up with Beatrice, who was proving herself worthy of a reputation to rival Mata Hari.  Even Hannibal had been impressed with the amount of intelligence she had managed to gather in half a day.  The good news was that in a home that had once housed more than two hundred residents, there were now only a little over forty; the bad news was that over a dozen of these were not mobile, and would have to be brought out in wheelchairs.  Nearly that number again were only able to walk with canes or walkers for support.  Most had no living relatives and so hadn't been able to benefit from Peck's efforts, and a few had been afraid to leave earlier.  As they had watched the remaining staff grow more tyrannical as numbers dwindled, however, they had slowly changed their minds.  Now only a couple seemed ready to oppose the plan Murdock had introduced to them the other night in his whispered confidences.  Beatrice pointed them out to me as we sat together in the lounge.

"Over there.  The rather overweight one in the pink frills."

"I see her.  What do you propose we do, knock her out?"

"You have drugs," sniffed the older woman.

I snorted.  "They're stimulants, mostly.  Did anyone ever tell you you have a devious mind?"

A fond twinkle appeared in her green eyes.  "I think I'm starting to frighten Ben."

Chuckling, I watched the colour rise in her cheeks.  "Maybe you'll have what you want, then," I mused.  At her startled look, I explained, "You'll have peace and quiet; he'll leave you alone."

"My dear," she told me primly, "I don't think I ever said I wanted anything of the kind."

"Why, Beatrice Katherine Ogilvie!"  I whispered, feigning shock.

"Not so loud!" she hissed.

"Sorry, Mabel."

Beatrice grimaced at the name she had been assigned.  After a few moments' silence, she murmured, "He reminds me of a lad I met in Halifax during the war.  In those years the town was overflowing with servicemen, war workers, and merchant seaman and sailors from a dozen conquered countries. "  She sighed, her eyes not focused on anything in the room.  "His name was Nikos.  Crazy Greek with a head of hair that couldn't be tamed, curls going off every which way.  He didn't Brylcreem it like so many of the officers I had dated.

"It was a frightening, strange time, with German submarines sinking ships right outside the harbour.  At night you could see the fires–" She trailed off for a moment, and when she started again her voice had only a faint tremble.  "I knew he was going to die.  I never believed in such premonitions, but I believed it when he came to tell me he was headed out in the convoy.  He was marked somehow.  It was as if something was jealous of him, jealous he had all that life just–pouring out of him."

"How long did you have with him?" I whispered.

She frowned, remembering.  "Three weeks.  You know, I never thought of that before.  How long."

I hesitated, then plunged ahead.  Suddenly it seemed this woman held the key to a mystery I had been unconsciously trying to solve for over a year.  "I realize this is a terribly personal question, and I'll understand if you don't want to answer, but–was it enough?"

"Was it enough? I never thought of that either."  She regarded me appraisingly, and I felt as though I had just been x-rayed.  "Because it was everything."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After a long strategy session, Hannibal had informed me we would be wise to get some sleep before the early morning operation, slated for two a.m.  I emerged from the small bathroom to behold him stretched out on the bed, still in full makeup.  His eyes snapped open as he detected my approach, but he said nothing.

Without comment, I moved to the left side and climbed in beside him, and he rolled over to turn out the light.  I lay in silence for a minute or two listening to the sounds of our breathing.

"You all right?" he asked softly.

I turned my head toward him.  In the faint glow of ambient city light seeping through the window, his eyes were a ghostly, pale colour.

"No," I murmured, aching to touch him.

And why not? I asked myself an instant later.

It is everything.

My fingers encountered latex and makeup, and I hesitated, fearful of ruining all his hard work.

And then I kissed him.  He didn't attempt to take control this time, just let me explore both my reactions and his.

When I released him, I placed one hand over his heart.  The foam padding he had added to his frame dulled its beat, but it was there, steady and strong.

His hand rose to cover mine.  "You said once that I wasn't comfortable with taking things, with asking for things."

I shook my head.  "Hannibal, I was–"

"No, you were right.  I don't like to owe anyone anything;  I never have, and I don't want to start now.  Besides, in my experience, asking doesn't get you what you want if it's not ready to be given.

"If I've given to you or anyone else, Doc, it's because I spent a lot of years taking what didn't belong to me.  I don't lie awake nights rehashing my choices or the road not travelled, but I guess if I had to rationalize it, I'd say what I'm doing now is a way of paying back some of the debts.  It's not going to buy me a ticket to heaven, that's for sure, but it's all I know how to do.  It's true, I'm not worried if I die tomorrow, not because my conscience is clear, but because I know if I live another fifty years the balance sheet isn't going to be even."

He brought my hand to his lips, then freed it.  "I'm telling you this because now I'm going to throw it all out and ask you for something I want.  Something I never wanted to admit I needed."

My heart accelerated.  "Do you think I'm ready to give it?"

"That's the hell of it.  I don't know."

I smiled at the sensation of lightness that had suddenly overtaken me.  "Neither did I.  But I think I do now."  When he made a move to speak, I laid my fingers over his lips.  "And I know what you want to ask, so you don't have to.  Let me give that to you."

"What do I want, then, Doc?" he murmured.  "What do I want?"

I didn't answer him in words.  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_June 29, 1984_  
_2:00 a.m._  
 

He woke me with a kiss and a whisper.  I was still groggy, my brain sleep-fogged, but his words were an electric jolt to my adrenal gland.

"Give me five minutes.  If I'm not back by then, go out the window and run like hell."

After he left, I fell to rechecking my medical supplies for the hundredth time, then listened for sounds of fighting or yells or cries.  There were none.  And in four and a half minutes he returned.

"OK, the staff is out of commission.  C'mon."

We were met in the great room by Beatrice, Ben and Murdock, who were trying to calm a couple of panicked residents.  Murdock had his hand on the shoulder of a woman that I recognized as the one Beatrice had pointed out earlier.

"There's nothing to hurt you now," he was telling her, his voice low and soothing.  "We'll take you to a place where you won't have to be afraid."

The woman shook off his hold, her eyes sparking with fury and mindless fear.  "How do you know what I'm afraid of, you young scamp?  For all I know, this place you want us to go to could be a hundred times worse.  At least I know what to expect here."

A shiver ran up my spine.  She reminded me of Mary, my best friend from high school.  She married the star quarterback, a man who was all muscles and no humanity.  Within a year, he had beaten her so frequently that five of her white, straight teeth were loose.  One night, he hit her so hard she never got up again.

"You're right," I heard myself saying, and all heads turned to me.  "You don't know what to expect.  So stay here, and take it.  You don't want to be saved.  You don't deserve to be saved."

"How dare you–" spluttered the old woman.

"How dare I?"  I hissed, rounding on her.  "I dare because you won't.  Because deep down, you want to drag us all down with you.  Well, we won't put up with it.  Either you come with us quietly, or I'll put so many tranqs in you, you won't remember your name for a week."  It was an idle threat; I didn't have any such meds, and even if I did, it was the last thing I would do.  But she didn't know that.

The woman stared at me, open-mouthed, then I watched her visibly crumple.  Inwardly, I crumpled with her.  "All right," she said finally, meekly.  "I'll go with you."

As Murdock and the others led her away, Hannibal turned to me.  I felt the weight of his gaze on me, and tried not to flinch.

"Believe me," he told me quietly, "that cost you more than it cost her."

His understanding words went straight to my heart, and I fought back unwanted tears.  "Let's go," I murmured, striding off toward the chronic care wing.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

Fifteen minutes later, with the aid of Peck, we were almost done.  They had rented a bus and two ambulances for the occasion, and I was to accompany the most frail residents on one of the latter.  The plan was running smoothly, as far as I could tell.

Then as we were on our way out after a last walk-through, the phone rang at the front desk.  Hannibal, Murdock and I stopped and exchanged glances.

"Answer it?" asked Murdock.

Hannibal nodded.  "They would.  It might be a regular check-in."

Murdock picked up the phone, disguising his Texas drawl with a Valley accent.  "Shady Acres."  He listened for a few tense moments, then blew out a breath.  "Yeah.  OK."  He proffered the receiver to me.  "It's Frank."

Confused, I took the phone, conscious of Hannibal's presence behind me.  "Frank?"

"Mo.  Thank God.  Tell them to call it off.  Whatever they're doing, they have to stop."

"But we're almost finished here."

"Mo, Forrest McAndrew is here.  Right now.  He's got about half a dozen of his trained monkeys and–" The rest of Frank's sentence was cut off, then there was the sound of a scuffle and a low grunt as if someone had been gut-punched.

The next voice I heard was reptilian.  "Doctor Sullivan, put Colonel Smith on the phone."

I closed my eyes briefly, then handed off to Hannibal.  "Yeah," he snapped out, then fell silent.  "That's not a terribly smart idea, Mister McAndrew.  You'll find we don't respond well to threats."

"Hannibal!"  Peck raced into the front hall.  "The MPs are coming over the fence!  Somebody must have tipped off Decker!  What the hell do we do now?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that," Hannibal told McAndrew calmly, then hung up.  Turning to his lieutenant, he sighed.  "We can't shoot our way out;  it's not an option.  And we can't run with those vehicles full of senior citizens.  So–" I watched in horror as he unslung his rifle and laid it on the floor, then did the same with his 9 mm.  After a second, the other two men followed suit.

There was a sound that evoked a herd of elephants crashing through undergrowth, and then a dozen uniformed men were facing us with weapons drawn.   Between two of them stepped Roderick Decker, a smile fit to light up Hell on his face.

"Doctor, we meet again," he nodded cordially.  He scanned the rest of the group, then squinted at Murdock in the dim light.  "Who's this?" he barked.

"One of the orderlies," Hannibal offered.  "We forced him to help us."

Taking his cue, Murdock ran to Decker and clutched him in a bear hug.  "My hero!" he squealed.

The Colonel scrabbled ineffectually at Murdock's arms.  "Get this guy off me!" he roared, and two of the MPs stepped forward to disengage Murdock from their C.O.'s neck and carry him off.

"Where's Baracus?" Decker demanded when he was finally freed.

"On vacation," Peck supplied.  "Acapulco is lovely this time of year."

Decker nodded to several of his men.  "Search the property!" he ordered.  "And take them!"

"All of them?" his lieutenant asked, unsure about me.

"All of them!" grinned Decker.

"Colonel," I began, stepping forward, "you have to listen.  There's a hostage situation–"

"We know all about it," Decker interrupted, holding up a hand.  "Anonymous tip.  We're up to speed on your little operation here.  And Doctor," he informed me, leaning close, "if you thought you were in hot water before, it's boiling now."

"That's good to know," I smiled, summoning some bravado from a place inside me I didn't remember existed.  "My egg timer is broken."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

The barrel of a rifle trained on me, I walked between Peck and Hannibal to the waiting squad cars.

"Just so you know," I muttered to Hannibal under my breath, "this is the lousiest date I've ever been on."

His laughter resounded in the night air.  
   
   
   
   
 

_June 29, 1984_  
_8:30 a.m._  
 

I passed a restless night on the hard pallet that passed for a bed in the local National Guard hoosegow.  It was a new experience in a myriad of new experiences, not all of them unpleasant.  The lockup was small enough that there were only four cells, all attached, and so I had drifted off to the soft murmurings of two con artists engaged in the art of the hustle.  Unfortunately, the peace was shattered around five a.m. by the ear-blistering snores of a kid who'd been brought in on a drunk and disorderly charge.

Ordinarily, I imagine the members of the A-Team would have warranted maximum security, but I think my presence had made Decker a little nervous about the legal ramifications of dumping us in the base prison up at San Luis Obispo, and he hadn't wanted to split us up.  If the sight of his girlfriend behind bars was supposed to send Hannibal Smith into an uncontrollable rage, however, Decker was going to be sorely disappointed.  There were no apologies or tears of concern from the Colonel; after all, I had known what I was getting myself into.  And so I had.

Around seven, I got up, feeling every muscle in my back from trapezius to glutes screaming in agony, and yelled for the guard.  The D&amp;D snorted convulsively and drooled on his pillow, but didn't wake.  I phoned Abby and Dora and asked them to call a lawyer acquaintance in Pasadena when his office opened.  If I knew him, I would be out and suing the Army for every jeep it had before lunchtime.

When I returned, it was feeding time; coffee and muffins had been delivered.  Hannibal showed no ill effects from having removed all that latex last night without benefit of the proper chemicals, whereas my face felt as though a thousand fire ants were crawling over it.  He and Peck ate with gusto, their mood jovial.    I wanted to smack them both silly. Drooler's coffee remained untouched, his breathing finally silent.  I reached a hand through the bars and felt for his pulse, reassuring myself he hadn't slipped into a coma.

"Hey, Doc," Peck called out.  "Remember when you put us in one of these?"

"Hank's jail is the Hilton compared to this," I grumbled, resisting the temptation to bang my rock-hard muffin against the wall.  "Besides, as I recall you didn't spend a lot of time there."  I took an experimental sip of the coffee and nearly spat it out again.

"Jesus," Peck whistled.  "She always this cranky in the morning, Hannibal?"

Blue eyes like laser beams came to bear on the younger man.

"Yeah.  Well, maybe that was a rhetorical question.  Feel free to treat it as such."

I squeezed my breakfast and threw it in the sink when it refused to give.  "I think I'm going to be out of here soon.  Do you want me to take a message to anyone?"  All of this surveillance had made me wary of naming names.

Hannibal shook his head.  "Thanks, but we're working on something, and I imagine they are too."  A wicked smile appeared.  "I have a feeling we might be out of here before you are."

"I don't doubt it," I smiled back.  "What now?"

"First of all, you can tell Frank we're going to have to come up with another solution.  A frontal assault is impossible, so we'll have to figure out a way to hit this guy without involving anyone else."

I sighed and reached around to massage my aching muscles.  "I'll have to look at getting a temporary leave from the clinic.  Frank is going to need me more than ever now that you guys can't hang around."  I realized how that might sound, and looked up to meet Hannibal's gaze.  But there was no jealousy in it, only an emotion I didn't dare name.

"C'mere," he murmured.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, I walked up to the bars separating us.   When I was a few inches away from him, I stopped, savouring the heat radiating from him.

"Turn around," he instructed.  I pursed my lips at the commanding tone but complied, and an instant later felt his strong fingers digging into my back.  Unable to contain a startled gasp, I beat back the urge to moan out loud.  Wouldn't do to get Peck too excited.

I felt his breath tickle my ear.  "248-6692."

"Wha'?"  I slurred, completely drugged by his touch and losing awareness of my surroundings.

"Just memorize it.  It changes regularly, but that one'll be good for a couple of more weeks."

My eyes snapped open as I returned abruptly to the land of the lucid.  He was giving me the number of the mobile phone in the van.  Something told me that was hugely significant.

"Don't get any ideas," he teased softly, as if reading my mind.  "Face gives out the damn thing to his women all the time."

"But you don't," I whispered.

"Nah.  I get by on roses."

"You've never given me roses."

Hands moved to my shoulders and gently kneaded.  "Yeah.  And I never will."

I reached up to cover his hands with mine, and they stilled.  We stood like that for a moment, frozen with the realization of what had transpired between us.

Then there was a sound of shouting from the outer office, and a hysterical wail.  It took me a second to recognize Murdock's voice, then Baracus' angry growl.

"I'm glad I didn't bet on my getting out first," I muttered as Hannibal and I stepped apart.

The commotion outside grew louder, and suddenly the door to the office was flung open, and one of the Guardsmen stepped through, followed by the two men and someone I didn't expect.  As I sorted out what was going on in my mind, I registered the sight of Baracus holding Beatrice tightly against his body with one hand and a .45 ACP to her head with the other.  Behind him, Murdock, in a tan suit, was shifting excitedly from foot to foot and wringing his hands.

"Please don't hurt my mother," Murdock was keening, holding out what looked like a wallet.  "You can have anything I have.  My cash, my credit cards...take it all!"

"I don't want your money, fool," blustered the sergeant.  To the hapless and disarmed Guardsman fumbling with the keys, he shouted, "Hurry up with that!"  The poor so and so nearly dropped them at the gruff order.  Meanwhile, Beatrice, dropping her terrified old lady act for an instant, caught my eye and winked.

I shook my head.  It was a simple plan, but direct.  Perfect.

A few moments later, Peck and Hannibal were free.  Their C.O. regarded the young man before him with sympathy.  "Sorry, pal," he told him, then flattened him with a right hook.  Peck caught him and lowered him to the floor.

Immediately, Baracus released Beatrice and holstered his weapon.  "Did I hurt you, Miz Ogilvie?" the big man inquired, inspecting her for signs of damage.

"Not at all, Mister Baracus," she reassured him.  "You were very careful."

Murdock stepped forward, digging inside his jacket and handing the two men their guns.  "This place is gonna be crawlin' with MP's in a minute.  One of ‘em got to the alarm."

Hannibal turned back to me.  "Call me if you need me," he murmured, then spun on his heel and led his men out of the jail.

Beatrice watched them go with a look on her face that could best be described as wistful.  "Well, I had better be moving along too;  Ben is waiting outside.  I can playact for a little while, but my performance doesn't bear extended scrutiny."  She smiled at me.  "Will you be all right?"

I stood there, feeling the adrenaline charging through my body, and grinned back at her.  Of all places for it to happen, I thought, a military prison cell was strangely appropriate.

"I've never been better."  
   
   
   
  

  
 

_June 29, 1984_  
_9:30 p.m._  
 

"Do you remember the time Abby borrowed the goat from Mrs. Nguyen and let him loose in the C.O.'s garden?"

"I figured one old goat deserved another."

Somehow, that line seemed a lot funnier after three beers.  I sniggered helplessly while Dora looked scandalized.  In direct contradiction to the rest of us, she always got more prim and proper when she was in her cups.  "You have to admit it wasn't a very nice thing to do.  Some of those flowers were important to him."

Abby snorted.  "More important than his troops were, that's for sure.  And it wasn't a ‘very nice thing' for him to grope my ass at the O Club every time I walked in."

I lifted my mug.  "To ol' Hammerhead.  Wherever he is now, may it be warm."

"Maggie!"

"I'll drink to that," Abby seconded.

"Seriously, though," I managed, looking around their living room, where I half-sat, half-lay in one of their bottomless chairs, "how the hell did you two ever end up together?  I mean, it's like Snow White meets Darth Vader sometimes."

The two women exchanged looks, and I saw the same devotion mirrored on their faces.

"Never mind," I murmured, taking another swig.

"Do you remember Cu Chi?" Dora asked almost inaudibly.

I snapped my head up.  We spent six months in Cu Chi before I transferred to Pleiku, but I knew exactly what she was talking about.  "Yeah."  The three of us had never talked much about our experiences in country, but since I had been going to the rap sessions at the VA it was as though the floodgates had opened.  We had even discussed taking a trip to the Wall in October.  Abby wanted to go when all the leaves were dying.

"Remember the way we usually treated the Red Alerts?  After a while it was, ‘Oh well, what difference does it make?'  And we hated the flak jackets and the helmets; they always got in our way.  But Abby knew, she knew.  Didn't you?"  She looked to her partner for confirmation of something I couldn't define, some reassurance that choices made were out of our hands.

"It was a big assault on the compound.  Not Tet, it was in March.  She told me to get out of the ward, and I didn't want to go;  she had to drag me out.  I wanted to stay there with the corpsmen and tend to the wounded, but she said all the women were being evacuated to Long Binh.  You were already on the dustoff with a couple of the Red Cross workers and the rockets were screaming over our heads, mortars were pounding everywhere, the sky was on fire.  They said there might be sappers inside the perimeter.  There were tunnels all over that place–you never felt safe, at least I didn't, but I refused to think about it.  I figured I would be all right in the hospital, with Tom and the other medics, and the wounded men needed me.  But Abby told me I had to go, and Tom–" her breath caught– "Tom practically shoved me out the door, and we hadn't crawled a hundred yards when the mortar hit.

"I could hear Abby yelling at me over everything else, but I had to go back, I had to.  And then you were there, we were all running, you and me and Abby.  We got there, but there was nothing we could do.  Everyone was in pieces; I couldn't tell where Tom was.  Where he had been.  The walls were covered–" She trailed off and took a deep breath.  "I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  But you asked."

"I'm confiscating this," I told her, taking her daiquiri from her unresisting hand.  "I asked how you two got together."

"We didn't get together until after we got home," Abby said gently, brushing back a lock of Dora's hair.  "After I divorced Steve."

"But that's when I knew.  That's when I knew that I loved you.  Because you held me, and you put the steel pot on my head, and you got me into the flak jacket, and you said, ‘Stay as long as you need to.  I won't leave until you do.'"

Abby's voice was husky.  "You never told me that."

Dora met her gaze.  "I know."

As discreetly as I could, I gathered up our glasses and headed for the kitchen, determined to give them–and myself–some private time.  I dumped what was left of the drinks in the sink and rinsed out the remnants, then retreated to the bathroom, where I spent several minutes watching silent tears follow each other down my cheeks.

If you want to feel again, I told the woman staring back at me, you have to take the good with the bad.

After a suitable interval I mopped myself dry and returned to the living room.  The record player was on and Dinah Washington crooned from the speakers.  "I, ah, I know this is a lot to ask," I began, "but could I stay here tonight?  I'm pretty sure Decker's goons are having me followed and I don't want to go back to an empty house, imagining MP's peeking in my bedroom window."

"It's not a lot to ask," Dora smiled.  "You know you're always welcome."  She reached up to squeeze my hand as I sat down.

"Oh, I wanted to show you an article we saw in this morning's Times," Abby said, bouncing to her feet to retrieve the newspaper from the kitchen table.  She came back with a section of it and handed it to me.  "Speaking of the Red Cross–the Doughnut Dollies are having a convention in Santa Monica."

"The woman organizing it was at China Beach," Dora offered, pointing to the picture.

"I don't remember her," I replied.

"She might have arrived after you left," Dora explained.  "Anyway, I think it's a great idea.  I'm going to ask around, see if there's something similar for medical staff.  It would be wonderful if we could all get together.  After all, there's strength in numbers, isn't there?"

My beer-soaked brain took a moment to process her words.  "What did you say?"

"I'm going to ask around–"

"No, that last part."

"Strength in numbers?" ventured Abby, perhaps a little taken aback by my fervour.

"That's it.  That's it!" I exclaimed, my heart racing fast enough to beat a 747.  Grinning like an idiot, I announced to my dumbstruck friends, "Goddammit, girls, I think I have a plan!"  
   
   
   
   
 

_June 30, 1984_  
_8:30 a.m._  
 

The woman stood no more than a couple of inches over five feet.  Her waist was doubtless as tiny as it had been in 1969, and her ash-blond hair and makeup were done in the latest PTA Mom style.  She looked like a former cheerleader who'd married her high school sweetheart and popped out two point five of the cutest kids you'd ever seen.

Which made it all the more surprising when she released a flock of extremely filthy curse words and launched herself at Templeton Peck like a linebacker for the Chicago Bears.

"Maisie!" the lieutenant yelled, just before he had the wind knocked out of him by the smallish missile.

The other members of the Team crowded around her like bees on a rose, all smiles and hugs.  I was a witness to a reunion that fascinated me.  Once the excitement had died down a little, I ambled over to them.  Murdock turned to me, grinning like a kid.  "Doc, this is Maisie Fitzgerald."

"The best damned Delta Delta who ever hit the jungle," Peck added.

Maisie made a fanning motion with her hand.  "Now, Lieutenant Peck, you've got me all aflutter," she mock-sighed, and the five of them broke up again.

"How do you know this bunch?" I asked.

Maisie laughed, laying a hand on Peck's arm as if he were a long-lost brother whose existence wasn't quite to be believed.  "This bunch were my first forward run.  My partner and I were dropped in the middle of a field by a Jolly Green north of Quang Tri–"

"North of Quang Tri?" I interrupted, aghast.  "That's the DMZ!"

"Uh huh," Maisie nodded.  "I think they got a little too close on that one.  We were supposed to be programming to a bunch of Airborne fellas, but all we found was trees and mud."

"You programmed in the middle of the jungle?"

"Oh, sure," she acknowledged blandly.  "Up in the mountains, anywhere they'd send us.  It wasn't just sitting in an air-conditioned hall waiting for the men to show up.  We went out to them as often as possible."

I felt a little sheepish at my ignorance of what these women had done.  The Red Cross workers and the medical staff on a base didn't usually socialize all that much; we stayed in our corner, they in theirs.  At least I hadn't made much of an effort to get to know them.  It wasn't as though we looked down on them, but I suppose many of us had no real idea what they were doing there, with their blue hats and sunny dispositions and bags full of games, playing Concentration and Twenty Questions with guys who'd just come back from a short trip to Hell.  Their main function was to represent America to the soldiers overseas, and I can remember asking myself if the association was more painful than pleasant to a grunt who spent large pieces of his life waist-deep in a rice paddy.  But judging from the faces of the men around me, there had been plenty of pure adoration for the Donut Dollies.

"Anyway," continued Maisie, "there we were, with no radio, no way of getting out, and then a platoon of guys broke cover and started walking toward us, and I started praying, because they were dressed in black pajamas.  We swore we were headed for the Hanoi Hilton."  She pinched Peck on the arm again.  "And then this one says, ‘Would you ladies care for an escort back to base?'" and I near to died with relief."

"After that, she became our own personal Delta Delta," Murdock grinned.

"I kept meeting up with you fellas wherever I went.  When I was in Pleiku, you were up in the mountains.  I remember that time I was visiting the orphanage in your village–" She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again her voice was husky.  "I always wondered what happened to them all.  Some of them were so–"

"Yeah," said B.A.  The syllable spoke volumes.

"And I wondered what had happened to you," she added, looking at each of them in turn.  "When I heard about your arrest, it's terrible, but my first thought was, ‘At least they made it home.'  I know it was selfish, but I was glad to hear you made it.  I was glad.  I'm sorry.  You see, there were so many times I wished I could track down everyone I had met over there, even though I couldn't remember more than a handful of names, and the faces blur and change.  Some nights I wake up sure that no one survived–" She trailed off, and I realized she was dangerously close to tears.  Peck saw it too, and reached for her, enfolding her in his arms.

"It's OK," he soothed.  "We made it home, and so did you."

I wasn't sure how long we all stood there, momentarily lost in our own heads, before a tall, stately woman in her forties took the podium of the large ballroom and called for attention.  She caught my eye and smiled, looking none the worse for having been engaged in a clandestine strategy session since five this morning.

"This is it," I murmured.  Hannibal nodded, and together we started toward the front of the room.

"Temp," I heard Maisie whisper behind us, "what are you doing here, anyway?"

"Darlin'," returned Peck, a grin in his voice, "we're in need of your tender mercies.  You're going to program the hell out of some special friends of ours."  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_July 4, 1984_  
_12:30 p.m._  
 

I wasn't sure if this was what the Founding Fathers had intended, but to me, Independence Day had never been more meaningful.

I stood in the middle of organized, joyous chaos.  Hundreds of men, women, and their kids were turning the lawns of Shady Acres into a carnival.  We'd descended on the place in a coordinated attack this morning, setting up tents and barbecues before the staff knew what was happening.  And when they did figure it out, there were three TV cameras there to ensure they loved the whole damn idea.  Yes, Phase One, our little diversionary action, was a roaring success.

Maisie and the other Delta Deltas had outdone themselves, programming up a storm according to their respective talents.  There were the tireless ones who'd contacted the local VAs and every other veteran's group they could scare up, explaining the situation and rallying as many people as possible for today's celebration.  There were the women with media connections who'd drawn a bevy of print, radio and television reporters with the promise of a good ol' fashioned patriotic story for the six o'clock news. And a handful with ties to the business and legal worlds had been employed in gathering interested parties for the all-important Phase Two.  Face and Frank had made their pitch in a marathon meeting yesterday morning, while we all waited, holding our collective breath.  We didn't have to worry;  not only was the proposal sound, but one of the men proposing it could sell the Brooklyn Bridge to Ed Koch.  By five o'clock the ink was dry on the contracts.

Now all we had to do was make McAndrew sign on the dotted line.  If he could be induced to see the light.

I scanned the crowd, where the residents who could go outside were visible here and there, each tended by a host of fellow vets, witnesses to more recent wars.  The range of ages startled me, though of course I knew my history.  WWI.  WWII.  Korea.  Vietnam.  Too many.  A fluid knot of cake-covered kids advanced screaming, wrapped around my legs, then passed by effortlessly.  Casualties or survivors of the next war, police action, madness?  No.  God.

Then I caught a glimpse of him, moving through the crowd, catlike, watchful.  The TV crews had met with them and agreed to blind their all-seeing eyes to the presence of the team.  But I could look my fill, and to me he was so much of what I needed, wanted.  I could admit that now, to myself.

And if it ended next week, tomorrow, today, like Beatrice's had all those years ago?  Well.  I wasn't that strong, yet.  I could admit that too.  But I wasn't going to let the fear of it ending keep me from him.  Not for one second longer.

I dragged my gaze away, and it lighted on B.A.  More precisely, on the pieces of B.A. peeking out from underneath a pile of children.  They covered him like a squirming , multicoloured quilt, but he didn't seem to mind in the least.  I ambled over to them.

"Ready!"  one of them yelled as I drew near.  The kids all froze, muscles taut, teeth clenched, determined looks etched on their faces.

Then a roar rose from below, and six small bodies started to move as one.  I burst out laughing as B.A. reminded them that he could not be bound to earth.  He had his own agenda when it came to gravity.  Determination turned to astonishment, then squeals of delight, as he took them with him, reaching skyward.

When they were all scattered, he barked, gruff but affectionate, "Go on, now.  Lunch's ‘bout ready.  Yo' mommas gonna be waitin'."  They scrambled to their feet, united by their rumbling stomachs, and launched themselves, jet-propelled.

I waited while he dusted himself off, then spoke.  "Do you still have the same feeling?"

He didn't ask me what I was talking about.  "Told you I'd know when it happened.  An' it hasn't happened yet."

I bit back a retort.  Shut up, I admonished myself.  It's like trying to move Gibraltar.  Just–trust him.  Trust all of them.  "OK," I sighed, shoulders slumping.

He looked at me, hard and angry, but with a small measure of sympathy that almost undid me.  Then his eyes raised to a point beyond my shoulder, and he nodded.  "They're ready."  I turned and saw Hannibal, Peck, and Murdock standing about fifty feet away.  The crowd was thin around them, as if they too defied gravity, resisted attachments to anything but each other.

I met his dark gaze.  "Then so am I."  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

"And what, exactly, do you expect me to do with this?" McAndrew demanded.  He sat in his leather executive office chair, trapped behind his massive desk, while Hannibal, Frank, Face, Murdock and I stood on the other side.  There was no one left on his side; the Team and the other vets had seen to that.  I wondered if he had a wife and kids somewhere, hoped without charity that he was now totally alone, like some of the people he had held here.

Hannibal didn't speak for a moment, pausing to light his cigar, the picture of serene calm.  "I expect you to sign it," he told him, not even bothering to look at him.

"It's a great deal," Peck added.  "A lot better than you deserve."  McAndrew made to pick up the contract, and the conman raised a finger.  "And we have six more copies where that came from, so don't even think about ripping it up."

Murdock leaned down, bending at the waist until his elbows were propped up on the desk.  Head in his hands, he regarded the man on the other side with a wide, crazy grin.  "Aw, let him rip it up, Faceman.  I love feeding paper to people I like."  He pursed his lips.  "‘Course, you won't be able to taste it in the places I'm gonna be puttin' it."

"Do what you want," McAndrew blustered.  "I'm not giving up my business to this son of a bitch."

Snake eyes swivelled toward Frank, but the other just shook his head.  "It's not going to me.  If you read the contract, you'll see I have nothing to do with it, apart from the fact that the homes will be run on my cooperative model."

Face grinned.  "Our investors really liked that bit."

"And who are your investors?" spat McAndrew.

The grin spread to Hannibal, who indicated the open window behind McAndrew's back.  "Most of ‘em are enjoying hot dogs and coleslaw on your lawn right now."

"Or will be as soon as you sign on the line," Murdock snapped, tapping an impatient finger on the contract.  "C'mon, I'm gettin' hungry just talkin' about it!  Hot dogs!  Coleslaw!"  His eyes bugged.  "Paper!"

"Let the man take his time, Murdock," Peck said.  "We wouldn't want him to claim he signed this contract under duress."  He nodded toward the desk.  "You'll want to pay special attention to the part that says you agree to retire from the business world.  This deal allows you to do that, quite comfortably.  We wouldn't want you starting up, say, a day-care centre in Idaho five years down the road."

"Mind you," Hannibal amended, "we don't expect you to honour a piece of paper, any more than you honoured the people who were imprisoned here.  So you'll forgive us if we keep an eye on you from now on."

McAndrew made an unpleasant noise.  "You can't expect–"

"Oh, not just us," Hannibal explained.  "You'll have every vet in this country on your back, pal.  There are more of us out there than you'd ever expect, and we're getting more organized every day.  We don't give up, and we take care of our own."

"Nobody tells me what to do," McAndrew ground out.  I had to give him points for dumb-ass determination.  "I called the MPs and the cops this time–" He trailed off when Peck shook his head.  "What?" he yelled.

"No soap," Face told him, smiling that sweet charmer's smile.

Murdock pushed off the desk.  "It's the Fourth, man."

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!!"

Murdock exchanged glances with Peck.  "Touchy, ain't he?"

"What they mean is," I chimed in, enjoying myself despite the charged atmosphere, or maybe because of it, "there won't be any cavalry riding over the hill to your rescue.  We've got influence with the military police, and there are enough vets on the LAPD, that they all agreed, quietly, of course, to give the Team a day's amnesty.  For patriotic reasons."  I didn't add that Decker's reasons were probably more personal, considering Abby had been put in charge of dealing with him.  But he didn't need to know that.

McAndrew's expression changed then, but it hid more than it revealed.  That made it all the more dangerous.  He smiled, spreading his hands, and I felt an electric current pass between the three Green Berets in the room.  "Look, I guess I know when I'm licked.  You want me to sign this?  Fine, let's get it over with.  I just need to find a pen..."   He trailed off, pushing his chair back, and then about six things happened at once.

He opened his desk drawer, pulled out a dark, shiny object.

Hannibal shook his head, muttered something, and reached behind his back.

Murdock shoved me roughly to the ground, and Face did the same with Frank.

I tried to force my brain to slow down, but it insisted on racing on.  Not now, not for this bag of–

A wide brown arm shot through the open window behind McAndrew and hooked around his neck, jerking his head up and back, his gun hand following the motion involuntarily.

Hannibal, directly in the line of fire, dove.

A shot rang out.

Was he fast enough washefast–

Scrambling on hands and knees, my vision narrowed, no longer seeing anything but him.  Fingers searching, probing...

–Triage.  I always hated triage.

The prefix "tri" means three.

Walking wounded.  Immediates.  Expectants.

The walking wounded could wait.  The immediates couldn't.  The expectants got put behind a screen.  They were expecting, but not like Lucy expecting Little Ricky.

They were expecting to die.

They wanted God and their mothers.  They weren't going to get to see one of them, and after a couple of months of doing triage I wasn't sure if they'd see the other one, either.  I thought maybe He'd packed His fucking suitcase and gone on permanent vacation.

After three months they took me off triage.  I got caught too many times behind the screen, holding their hands.  I had better things to do with my hands.  Or so they told me–

Fingers searching, probing...

Nothing.  Nothing.

"Shh.  I'm OK, Doc.  I'm OK."

"I know.  I know.  I was good at it.  That's why they didn't want to take me off."

To him, it was gibberish, but he just nodded.  Understanding.  He reached up to stroke my cheek briefly, then gathered himself and stood.  Offered me his hand.

I took it.  Raised myself up.  A little help wasn't anything to be ashamed of, not any more.

McAndrew was slumped in his chair, defeated.  Frank, Face, Murdock and B.A. stood around him like terrible angels.  Hannibal put a hand on my shoulder

"You think you can find him a pen, guys?" he asked.  They all nodded, slowly, loving it.  Hannibal and I headed out to find ourselves some hot dogs.  
   
   
  

  
   
 

_July 4, 1984_  
_10:00 p.m._  
 

I lay back in the passenger seat, halfway between waking and sleeping, as he drove us through the clear black night.  The rented sedan bounced softly with the undulations and dips in the road.  I didn't know where we were going and didn't care. The radio was off, so I listened to the music of the engine speeding us away from the city.

Sooner than I expected–must've dozed off–he turned off onto a dirt road, and I stretched and yawned.

"Sleeping Beauty," he murmured, and I felt a warmth seep all the way to my bones.

"That makes you the Handsome Prince," I told him.  "What happened to your white steed?"

"They were all out of ‘em at the Hertz," he drawled, slowing the car to a stop.  "And here we are."

I blinked and squinted out the windshield.  I hadn't seen that degree of blackness since Bad Rock.  In LA everything gave off light and heat.

"And where is here?"

"It's a cabin we use sometimes.  The title is in the name of a chopper pilot buddy of Murdock's, but it was bought by the four of us."

I looked at him, or at least the place where the voice was coming from.  Their own country, and they couldn't even stamp their names on the smallest piece of it.  Hell, maybe when they were dead, a tombstone, maybe not even then.  Like all the names that would never make it up on the Wall, etched in shiny black stone for all eternity.

A strange fierceness rose in me, chasing the last remnants of sleep.  A rage to plant my feet on the earth and howl for all I was worth, tell his name, make it real, make it heard.  To do what he couldn't do for himself.  It was pointless, but it was love, and I understood now that it was enough.

He opened the car door.  "Give me a minute.  I'll put a light on so you can see where you're going."

Don't bother, I wanted to tell him as he walked away into the night.  I don't need to know that any more.  
 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
 

The cool water reawakened my tired skin and muscles as I sank into the lake.  It had been another long week at the clinic, but I'd made a difference, and that was more than I'd been doing two years ago.  A huge chunk of my life–the ten years I spent locked away from the world after returning from ‘Nam–seemed a distant memory now.  Too much living since then.  Too much living left to do.  Dunking my head, I came up gasping.  Breathing.  God, it felt good.

I ran a hand over my face and hair to dispel the water trickling into my eyes, the better to watch for him.  He was not far behind me when I left the cabin, told me he'd join me in a few minutes.  I pushed out into deeper water, my toes just touching the pebbly bottom.  Out here, away from the trees, the night was bright with stars, though the waning moon was starting its descent.  I tilted my head back to observe the glowing band of the Milky Way slashing across the sky.

Without warning, something grabbed at my ankle and yanked, hard.  I was dragged under momentarily, my eyes open and staring in the blackness.  A heavy, familiar warmth enveloped me, and a mouth settled over mine, sharing air and heat.  Suddenly released, I bobbed to the surface, spluttering.

When I could focus again, the first thing I made out was his grin, reflecting starlight.  "Sorry.  I wanted to see if I could still run as silent as I used to."

The blood flowed fast and hard through my veins.  Systolic, diastolic.  I swam nearer, enjoying the tidal pull he exerted on me.  My own personal moon.  "Nice try," I managed. "But I'm sure you practiced that maneuver last week, and know damn well you're perfect at it."

He kept grinning, feet planted firmly on the bottom.  "You got me.  I would've pulled down your suit but you don't have one."

I closed the distance between us.  Touched firm, unyielding flesh with confident fingers.  "You don't either," I commented.   Felt his hands stir the water at my sides, then kicked off again before they could connect.

The Moon is a powerful force.  But it orbits the Earth, is anchored by it; the planet keeps it constant.  Without the Earth, the Moon is barren, lifeless.  The Earth gives it a chance to create tides, shape its surface.  As he approached me, I thought about how his presence in my life had shaped me, returned me to forgotten patterns and paths abandoned by fear.  But I still couldn't help wondering if my presence was an anchor that would eventually drag him down, crashing, shattering.

"Hey," he said, his voice velvet, his fingertips on my cheek like a balm.  "What is it?"

I met his gaze, blue eyes drained to silver by the night.  "I was thinking–about tides.  Gravity.  The advantages and disadvantages of being a celestial object."

He laughed, short and sharp.  "Well, I asked."  Cupping my chin, he murmured,  "Any conclusions, Doctor?"

I shook my head, enjoying the way his hand brushed my skin as I did.  "I'm no good at predicting the movements of planets."

"Neither am I," he rumbled.  "I never predicted you."

I attempted a chuckle.  "If you had, you would've turned the van around and headed for the next town."

"No."  The forcefulness of the syllable startled me.  "You can think whatever you want about anything else, but not that.  Never that."  He took my hand in his and brought it to his lips.  "I never regretted you.  Not even when you left."

I was shocked into silence.  Laying a palm over his heart, I felt for the steady beat, found it.  We stood together like that, absorbing each other.

"You were a long way away this afternoon," he murmured finally.

I nodded.  "Fifteen years."

"Thanks for coming back."  His eyes told me that wasn't the only return he was thanking me for.

I blinked back sudden tears.  "You brought me back.  It was you from the start."  My hand left his heart to caress his face, loving the feel of stubble and skin and warmth.  "It'll be you at the end."

His gaze devoured me, and then his mouth took over.  I sank with him into the water, my arms filling themselves with him.  He pulled me against him, and I fell from orbit, crashing into his surface.

And later, much later, we shattered together.  
 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: graphic descriptions of characters suffering from PTSD (war-related), death (minor characters).
> 
> First published c. 2001.


End file.
